giddyyup writes:

1

"After all, there has never existed a human that, if they would be honest with themselves, could truly doubt that God exists."

This is wrong in so many ways. 1, speculation. 2, arrogance. 3, speculation. 4, personally, I'm glad I have "doubt," otherwise I'd think myself a simple minded fool.

But thats me.

posted on 08.09.2005 3:46 AM

jpe writes:

2

Moral objectivism has always struck me as strange, since it requires that we treat a moral propositions as things that exist just like rocks and trees. "Hey, look at that true moral proposition sitting next to that big rock." It's just weird.

Once objectivism is jettisoned (along with all the atavistic Scholastic questions it engenders), the real problem* can be foregrounded: how do moral propositions have force? We know that by their very structure they're universally binding - the real problem is at the level of illocutionary force.

*yeah, I never got that memo that logical positivism is dead. I still think clarifying pseudoproblems is where the action's at.

posted on 08.09.2005 6:52 AM

jpe writes:

3

The above is kinda sloppy - by objectivism I meant the notion that moral truths are things that exist in the way that birds and bricks exist (and whose existence, like a bird or brick, requires that we tackle the problem of first causes and creators).

I take it that this is mode of existence is opposed to the mode of existence of propositions generally.

I didn't mean to imply that moral propositions don't have knowable truth values, only that they exist as a subset of propositions.

posted on 08.09.2005 6:57 AM

Jeff writes:

4

"After all, there has never existed a human that, if they would be honest with themselves, could truly doubt that God exists."

Wow... just... wow. This is a powerful stupid statement. I guess rational discussion about doubt ought to just pack up and go home, because this says it all.

posted on 08.09.2005 7:54 AM

Jim Gilbert writes:

5

GiddyUp and JPE: Joe's statement is neither arrogant nor stupid, but you may well perceive it as Gospel foolishness, Heaven's intentional insult to man's wisdom.

The fact is, while atheists claim there is no God, Romans chapter one claims there are no atheists. Joe is merely being consistent with that claim. Would you expect otherwise from him?

posted on 08.09.2005 8:13 AM

jpe writes:

6

Of course Joe's comment was neither arrogant nor stupid; one can disagree about the proper philosophical ground on which to tackle a problem without thinking the other party is stupid.

posted on 08.09.2005 8:30 AM

Boonton writes:

7

All those who accept the premise that objective morality exists, must also accept that an objective moral lawgiver exists. We can therefore form our argument as:

1. If God did not exist, objective moral values and duties would not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Implies:

1.1 God is defined here simply as the source or cause of objective moral values and duties.

In this case you haven't proven that God exists in the sense that most Christians would understand God. Only that 'objective morality' exists....or that a cause of objective morality exists to be more precise. God in this case could end up being something as impersonal and 'unintelligent' as a mathematical equation rather than the thinking, active beign depicted in the Bible.

posted on 08.09.2005 9:24 AM

Greg Forster writes:

8

It's obviously false that no one can "truly doubt" that God exists. Writing this was a disastrous blunder; it brings great discredit on Christ, and (as one can see from the comments above) only hardens people's hearts. When Christians write hateful things, it naturally makes people hate Christ more.

Now, with all due respect to those who disagree, I think it is true that 1) there is a God, 2) every person is able to discover this for himself by rational deduction, and 3) every person is responsible for discovering it. In short, every person either knows or should know that there is a God.

But to say that everyone *does* know that there's a God is almost self-evidently false, and to tell people something false about themselves - about their inner life, no less! - is insulting. And it redoubles the insult to tell them that if they disagree they're not being "honest with themselves."

Since I have said that everyone is responsible for discovering that there is a God, you may well ask why I think it's wrong to tell people that if they deny God they're being dishonest with themselves. But there are three very crucial distinctions between what Joe said and what I'm saying:

1) I acknowledge the obvious truth that some people actually do realio-trulio disbelieve in God, while Joe tells them that despite what they think they don't really disbelieve.

2) I am not saying that disbelief is always caused by lack of honesty, while Joe does say that. I have met some people who do seem to be denying God out of sheer intellectual dishonesty, but I do not think that is always or even usually the case. A dishonest person is *aware* that his reason tells him there is a God, and is *consciously* ignoring what his reason tells him. Because dishonesty is by definition a consciously bad act, it is one of the worst kinds of evil. But I think most unbelievers either a) haven't bothered to think the matter through rationally at all, or b) sincerely believe that their reason tells them there is not a God. The a) person is guilty of sloth, not dishonesty - a far less grievous sin. If you press me I will have to admit that the b) person's bad reasoning also stems ultimately from a moral failure; otherwise I could not maintain that everyone is responsible for discovering God's existence. But I don't think that moral failure is dishonesty as such; it's something much less wicked even than the a) person's fault. "Mental negligence" might be a sufficient description. In either case, to accuse these types of unbelievers of "dishonesty" is slander.

3) I am trying to state what I think true in a way that shows respect to unbelievers, while Joe just waded in and called them liars. He could not have been more rude (or more obviously wrong) if he had said that all unbelievers are also child molesters.

Badly done, Joe.

posted on 08.09.2005 10:21 AM

Kevin T. Keith writes:

9

All those who accept the premise that objective morality exists, must also accept that an objective moral lawgiver exists.

This is the problem with this general line of reasoning.

There is no reason to believe the above (or to believe, as you imply previously, that "If [moral principles] are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground, [then they are] purely ephemeral?”

"Objective" truth is simply truth that holds for all (non-deluded) observers - truth that does not depend upon the observer's personal situation. There is nothing about "objective" truths that requires that they be dictated by a "lawgiver".

The proposition that "1 + 1 = 2" is objectively true, not because God dictated that it would be but simply because it works out that way under the terms of the logic that best describes the way the universe works. Hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water - it doesn't matter what God thinks about it, or what anyone else thinks - they just do, because that's also part of the way the world works. These objective truths arise from the basic structure of the universe, and the logic that describes (or, if you will, governs) it. Even if you claim that God created that universe and its structure, the workings of it do not require God's affirmation - they just work, and their consequences are the result of the way they work, not of God's direct approval or stipulation.

What non-theistic ethicists believe is that there is something about the logic of human lives that makes certain ways of living or behaving objectively best suited to achieving the moral good. Given some definition of the moral good (a contentious point, but not an insoluble one), it should be possible to work out how we have to live to achieve or promote that good. Ethics is then a matter of logical deduction, similar to science or math but only partially empirical (and thus harder to resolve definitively, but that's merely a practical inconvenience that comes with the territory). They logical conclusions of ethical reasoning hold for all observers, just as any other logical conclusion does. Ethical propositions are as "objective" as scientific or mathematical ones - though again a lot harder to arrive at definitively. They are in fact much more objective than the pronouncements of a decidedly arbitrary, capricious, inconsistent, racist, misogynist, vengeful, megalomaniacal, genocidal, and spiteful god like Jehovah.

posted on 08.09.2005 10:24 AM

Matthew Goggins writes:

10

Good morning, Mr. Carter,

"After all, there has never existed a human that, if they would be honest with themselves, could truly doubt that God exists."

That is a very interesting proposition.

You know, of course, that there are many people who do doubt that God exists. You know as well that there are many people who believe that God does not exist.

So why would you assume, Joe, that all these people are not being honest with themselves?

It seems to me you are making a lot of assumptions about people you have never met. You have a fixed idea of what people must be thinking or doing, and you do not seem open to the possibility that you might be wrong.

You could encounter someone today, someone who has a brilliant mind, who has devoted his life to all manner of philosophical inquiry, and who could explain to any who cared to listen why he either doubts God's existence, or why he does not believe God's exists.

You could encounter this person, and talk to that person, and have that person answer all your questions for as long you as like. But you would not be able to accept that he truly has different beliefs. You would not be able to accept that he has diligently examined the basis for his beliefs and still does not share your belief in God.

Does Joe Carter have a magic epistemological key that unlocks the code to everyone's psychology? Or is Joe Carter deep in denial about the validity of the ideas and the thinking of people who disagree with him about God?

Well Joe is a smart person, we all know that. He knows it is provocative and superficially arrogant to tell people that what they say and believe is just not so. There must be a method to his madness, so to speak.

I think that Joe is trying to accomplish a couple of different things here.

First, he is trying to grab the attention of the unbeliever, the committed agnostic or atheist, and get him to pay close attention to his beliefs. He hopes to get the unbeliever to discover for himself any faults or inconsistencies that might be lurking in his worldview. This is probably not a bad hook for most people, even if they are as atheist as an atheist can be. After all, how many people are there in the world who happen to have a 100% perfectly rational worldview?

Second, and more importantly, Joe is trying to act as a theological enforcer, a self-appointed police captain on the lookout for doubt amongst those who profess faith in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Joe, in some posts a while ago, railed at length against doubt in the Lord, against doubt in the Bible, against doubt in the reality of hell, and against doubt in the tenets of orthodox Christianity. He considers doubt to be sinful, a failure of the will, or even a wilful failure.

Doubting God's will is the equivalent of a child's rebelling against the just authority of his parent. There is no other reason to entertain doubt. When push comes to shove, doubt is always a species of wilful disregard for the truth, even if the doubter is entirely convinced otherwise.

This kind of dogmatism reminds of the stock character type who denies and represses his prurient interest in carnal affairs by becoming a holier-than-thou prude. The prurient prude always ends up poking his nose into other people's affairs and condemning the lewdness that he finds there, but getting a secret lewd thrill all the while from his voyeuristic crusading.

I don't know if Joe secretly harbors strong doubts about his religion, and it's not really any of my business. But it would certainly explain a lot.

Joe, maybe it's just not possible for you to accept that doubters and unbelievers can be equal partners with you in the quest for discovering truth and probing its nuances.

But maybe if you make a outward show of being respectful to people with different outlooks, your heart and mind can eventually learn how to accept and respect those people as well.

Greg,

Joe is not labelling anyone liars. He is not saying doubters and unbelievers are lying to themselves and others.

He is saying, rather, that they are fooling themselves, that they are in some kind of denial.

But I of course agree with you that Joe is being disrespectful. Thanks for pointing that out.

posted on 08.09.2005 10:44 AM

Stentor writes:

11

Joe: I've enjoyed this series, but I have to say this installment is surprisingly weak. You just assert that an objective law requires a lawgiver. The common rebuttal that there is some other potential ground for law is dismissed as inadequate without explanation. Perhaps more importantly, you assume that the existence of a lawgiver *is* an adequate explanation for the existence of law. I don't see that as necessarily being the case. The "law must come from a lawgiver" model comes from human society. And with regard to human laws, the point of revealing the existence of a human lawgiver is to show that the law represents not an eternal objectively binding principle, but only the will of a particular person or group. So that leaves the question "even if there is a God, why should I do what he says?"

posted on 08.09.2005 10:55 AM

Greg Forster writes:

12

Matthew writes:

"Joe is not labelling anyone liars. He is not saying doubters and unbelievers are lying to themselves and others. He is saying, rather, that they are fooling themselves, that they are in some kind of denial."

1) He says that no one "truly doubts" God's existence. If we take these words to mean what they mean in ordinary English, he is saying that anyone who claims to doubt God's existence is lying.

2) He says unbelievers are not "honest with themselves." So he is calling them dishonest. I don't really see any important distinction between calling someone dishonest and calling him a liar. If anyone out there does think this distinction matters, I'm happy to retract "he calls them liars" and substitute "he calls them dishonest." It seems like six of one and half a dozen of the other to me.

Perhaps somewhere inside Joe's head all he really meant to say is that the unbeliever is fooling himself. That is not, however, what he actually said; he used certain words, and those words mean certain things, and those things are hurtful, insulting, and (incidentally) untrue to boot. It is no defense that the thoughts in his head were different from the meaning of the words he used. It's his responsibility to speak, not just to think, to the glory of God.

posted on 08.09.2005 11:03 AM

Boonton writes:

13

In all fairness to Joe saying you're not being 'honest with yourself' is not the same as saying you're a liar in the ordinary use of the term. Calling someone a liar means they are intentionally trying to deceive others. Saying someone is deceiving themselves is viewed more with pity for the person than anger.

posted on 08.09.2005 11:47 AM

jd writes:

14

I find it interesting that all the attention has centered around the question, "Did Joe say something wrong because he said people when honest with themselves do not truely doubt God exists."

If this is a "wrong" thing to say - what makes it so? The real heart of this column is about the existance of objective moral values. If they do not exist, then Joe could not have possibly done anything wrong by any of his comments. He could have written hurtful and hateful things to his hearts content and it would not be "wrong".

I read some comments about how there are other sources of objective moral values - however - I never say any of these lifted up and defended - again just an attack on Joe.

Greg, you wrote:
"Joe, in some posts a while ago, railed at length against doubt in the Lord, against doubt in the Bible, against doubt in the reality of hell, and against doubt in the tenets of orthodox Christianity. He considers doubt to be sinful, a failure of the will, or even a wilful failure." Assuming you are using a standard definition of railing (complaining bitterly) I'd be very curious where you have ever found these posts. It appears just a cheap shot. Again - if you can actually produce these quotes - my humble apology.

Again - can we actually discuss the point of the column instead of side issues?

posted on 08.09.2005 12:27 PM

Larry Lord writes:

15

"But I think that there are indeed certain things that appear, at least on the most basic level, to be rather uncontestable and incapable of being truly denied by any human."

The Rolling Stones have gone downhill since Mick Taylor left the band.

posted on 08.09.2005 12:34 PM

Jim Gilbert writes:

16

JPE: Sorry. I mistakenly attributed Jeff's use of "stupid" to you.

Jeff: See my first comment above.

Kevin T. Keith said:

The proposition that "1 + 1 = 2" is objectively true, not because God dictated that it would be but simply because it works out that way under the terms of the logic that best describes the way the universe works. Hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water - it doesn't matter what God thinks about it, or what anyone else thinks - they just do, because that's also part of the way the world works. These objective truths arise from the basic structure of the universe, and the logic that describes (or, if you will, governs) it. Even if you claim that God created that universe and its structure, the workings of it do not require God's affirmation - they just work, and their consequences are the result of the way they work, not of God's direct approval or stipulation.

Kevin, you seem unaware of Joe's paradigm, which is the Hebrews 1:3 claim that God upholds "all things by the word of His power." You're saying the laws of physics work just because they work, a statement you cannot prove. And you further assert that, even if God created them, they continue functioning without need of Him, as though he built a car, cranked the engine, and walked away. The Hebrews paradigm, on the other hand, says these laws work because at all times God makes them work, a statement Joe cannot prove, but upon which he relies. One writer said it this way: "What we call nature is the way God usually does things. What we call a miracle is when He decides to do it differently." That's a bit simplistic, but the gist is there. Gravity holds me down, and my chair holds me up, because God constantly upholds and enforces natural laws.

Accepting a world without this transcendent, imminent God makes the whole world relative, as with one of the originators of the Outcomes Based Education program, who said some years ago (in an interview I did not keep and cannot retrieve), "One plus one doesn't necessarily equal two if the student doesn't feel good about that answer."

I don't pretend to rebut you, but merely to point out that you have not rebutted Joe. Your assertion that things work because they work is far more implausible than Joe's assertion that they work because someone designed them to work and fully maintains them at every moment.

posted on 08.09.2005 12:53 PM

Joe Carter writes:

17

giddyup This is wrong in so many ways. 1, speculation. 2, arrogance. 3, speculation. 4, personally, I'm glad I have "doubt," otherwise I'd think myself a simple minded fool.

Do you also doubt that you exist? If not, then does that make you a simple minded fool?

JPE Moral objectivism has always struck me as strange, since it requires that we treat a moral propositions as things that exist just like rocks and trees. "Hey, look at that true moral proposition sitting next to that big rock." It's just weird.

I can’t resist substituting another example in your statement:

Mathematics has always struck me as strange, since it requires that we treat numbers as things that exist just like rocks and trees. "Hey, look at that number sitting next to that big rock." It's just weird.

Jeff Wow... just... wow. This is a powerful stupid statement. I guess rational discussion about doubt ought to just pack up and go home, because this says it all.

Not at all. But we really have to stop treating doubt as if it were an obstacle that must necessarily be overcome in order to hold a rational belief. Too often, doubt itself is either the result of an irrational thought process or a matter of the “passions” that has nothing to do with reason at all.

Jim The fact is, while atheists claim there is no God, Romans chapter one claims there are no atheists. Joe is merely being consistent with that claim. Would you expect otherwise from him?

Exactly! But you jumped in too soon, Jim. I was hoping that I’d hook at least a few Christians who would take offense to that statement before they realized it was in the Bible. Just because I don’t quote chapter and verse in my arguments does not mean that I do not find them authoritative for my thinking.

But now that Jim has let the cat out of the bag, allow me to show (for the evangelicals who think I went off the rails with that statement) what Paul says in Romans 1:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse…

Boonton n this case you haven't proven that God exists in the sense that most Christians would understand God. Only that 'objective morality' exists....or that a cause of objective morality exists to be more precise.

Yes, I agree. To get to the God as Christians understand requires special revelation. General revelation – the type that can be gleaned from such arguments – is insufficient for the task.

It's obviously false that no one can "truly doubt" that God exists.

Just so we are on the same page, let me clarify that when I say “truly doubt” I mean cannot not know that there is God. If you believe that it is obviously false, do you also believe that the Bible is in error on this point.

Writing this was a disastrous blunder; it brings great discredit on Christ, and (as one can see from the comments above) only hardens people's hearts. When Christians write hateful things, it naturally makes people hate Christ more.

I’m surprised by your reaction, Greg. Do you reject Paul’s teaching when he says the same things (only more harshly)?

Now, with all due respect to those who disagree, I think it is true that 1) there is a God, 2) every person is able to discover this for himself by rational deduction, and 3) every person is responsible for discovering it. In short, every person either knows or should know that there is a God.

Wait a minute, that is essentially saying the same thing that I said. When I say that people cannot “truly doubt” I mean only that if they truly think things through and follow the evidence where it leads then they will have no reason to doubt. They may still claim to “doubt” just as a person can claim to “doubt” their own existence. But doubting requires the ability to think and thinking requires existence and existence requires God. So there is a direct link between being able to doubt and the existence of God. We may not be able to reason from it but it is an ontological necessity.

1) I acknowledge the obvious truth that some people actually do realio-trulio disbelieve in God, while Joe tells them that despite what they think they don't really disbelieve.

No, no, no. I’m not saying that they don’t really disbelieve. I said that they can’t truly doubt. There is a huge difference. To dis-believe is to reject a belief whether one is warranted in doing so or not. Doubt implies that you have a warrant for your disbelief. My contention is that no one has a warrant for their unbelief in the existence of God.

2) I am not saying that disbelief is always caused by lack of honesty, while Joe does say that.

By conflating “disbelieve” and “doubt” you are changing the meaning of what I said. My intention was exactly the same as yours. My claim merely states that anyone who thinks that they have truly followed the evidence to disbelief is not being true to themselves.

If you press me I will have to admit that the b) person's bad reasoning also stems ultimately from a moral failure; otherwise I could not maintain that everyone is responsible for discovering God's existence. But I don't think that moral failure is dishonesty as such; it's something much less wicked even than the a) person's fault. "Mental negligence" might be a sufficient description. In either case, to accuse these types of unbelievers of "dishonesty" is slander.

For someone who agrees with my basic point, I think you are making too much of this. I don’t think too many atheists are going to think it is any less rude to say that they have a “moral failure” than it is to say that they are not being “honest with themselves.” Dishonesty is not always, as you seem to imply, a great “wickedness.” Perhaps we see honesty differently, but I fail to understand how this could be a moral failure and not be a lack of integrity.

Does Joe Carter have a magic epistemological key that unlocks the code to everyone's psychology? Or is Joe Carter deep in denial about the validity of the ideas and the thinking of people who disagree with him about God?

Let’s reframe the question using one of the other premises that I claimed: that no one can doubt their own existence. If we were to encounter the same person above who was brilliant and could make clever arguments for why they don’t exist, would we not think that ultimately he was simply kidding himself?

We may disagree with whether God’s existence falls into the same set of claims, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that all humans know some essential facts about reality.

But maybe if you make a outward show of being respectful to people with different outlooks, your heart and mind can eventually learn how to accept and respect those people as well.

I think that you and I might have different views of what it means to accept and respect other people. I certainly accept the fact that other people disagree with me just as I accept the fact that I am often wrong about a great number of things. But on points where I do think I’m right – because I have been told such things by a relevant, trustworthy authority – I think it would be the height of disrespect not to share them honestly.

If someone were to lay down on the Interstate and I knew that a large truck was scheduled to come barreling down this same highway, I don’t think it would be right to simply accept and respect the person’s views that no one drives on Interstates. Sometimes people are wrong and should be told so.
Doubt is, as I truly believe, largely a result of an inordinate will rather than an ability to think clearly. For me to imply otherwise would be dishonest. I may be wrong on that point, but I think it is my duty to present the truth as best as I can.

Stentor I've enjoyed this series, but I have to say this installment is surprisingly weak.

Perhaps it isn’t the most strongly argued piece in this series. But it does fall under the category of inference to the best explanation. You might notice that no one has even attempted to give an explanation for where these objective values come from if not from a divine lawgiver. Until such a case is presented, I will continue to believe that this is the best explanation.

posted on 08.09.2005 12:55 PM

jpe writes:

18

Mathematics has always struck me as strange, since it requires that we treat numbers as things that exist just like rocks and trees....

It wouldn't be mathematics that's weird, it'd be the old-timey notion (abandoned by everyone but some stubborn Socratics that are probably out there somewhere) that numbers are things like trees and rocks. So I think you've sharpened my point a bit - if math is the propositional language par excellence, and morals are a subset of propositions, the notion that morals are frolicking about in Platonic Heaven is stranger still.

posted on 08.09.2005 1:12 PM

Patrick (Gryph) writes:

19

"Your assertion that things work because they work is far more implausible than Joe's assertion that they work because someone designed them to work and fully maintains them at every moment."

I would think that the former explanation is more provable than the latter. You can see an example of "Things work because they work" anytime you wish in the world around you. Looking for the evidence of God is a great deal more difficult.

It never ceases to amaze me how terrified Christians often are to admit to having faith in a God they cannot prove is real. You simply cannot have belief without crossing the chasm of disbelief in blind faith that there is a destination.

Those Christians that "know" God exists as apposed to those who "believe" God exists also seem prone to certain moral lapses.

posted on 08.09.2005 1:14 PM

Joe Carter writes:

20

Patrick You simply cannot have belief without crossing the chasm of disbelief in blind faith that there is a destination.

You have a very Kierkegardian view of Christianity that is quite foreign to the biblical view. The biblical view is not that disbelief is a chasm that must be crossed in blind faith but that faith is the evidence that shows us our need to stop rebelling against our Creator.

posted on 08.09.2005 1:24 PM

jchfleetguy writes:

21

I think the old 80/20 rule is in effect here as in most places. In the case of God, worldwide its actually about 85% that believe in one.

That 80% seems to be an interesting limit in many things.

posted on 08.09.2005 1:31 PM

Jon Rowe writes:

22

-- After all, there has never existed a human that, if they would be honest with themselves, could truly doubt that God exists. --

I misread this the first time. I thought you wrote:

"After all, there has never existed a human that, if they would be honest with themselves, has not doubted that God exists."

And the latter statement is, I think, the Truth, asmuchas the former is. And I say this as an agnosticish fellow who tends to believe that God (albeit a very unorthodox one) does exist.

posted on 08.09.2005 2:12 PM

brandon writes:

23

Joe:
All those who accept the premise that objective morality exists, must also accept that an objective moral lawgiver exists. We can therefore form our argument as:

1. If God did not exist, objective moral values and duties would not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Am I missing something here, or does 3 not necessarily follow from 1 and 2? You're saying "If not A, not B. B, therefor A." Wouldn't that be the fallacy of affirming the antecedent? Wouldn't it read better like this:

1. If God exists, objective moral values and duties must exist.
1a. If God does not exist, objective moral values cannot exist.
2. But objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Giddyup:

This is wrong in so many ways. 1, speculation. 2, arrogance. 3, speculation. 4, personally, I'm glad I have "doubt," otherwise I'd think myself a simple minded fool.

As Joe alluded to earlier, you aren't better off if you doubt. You live your daily life with a lot of faith and belief, from the moment you wake up. And if you don't believe in a lot of things that you can't prove your life would soon look very different than it does now. People are paralyzed by unbelief. Yet the belief in the virtue of doubt is one of Old Scratch's greatest intellectual swindles.

posted on 08.09.2005 2:28 PM

Jon Rowe writes:

24

"1. If God did not exist, objective moral values and duties would not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists."

Or how about Nietzsche's response:

1. God doesn't exist;
2. If objective moral values (btw: "values" is a term that implies all Truth is subjective, thus making "objective moral values" an ozymoron) are dependent on something that doesn't exist...;
3. Then objective moral values don't exist -- they are an illusion -- regardless of your or our desire that they do.

posted on 08.09.2005 3:50 PM

brandon writes:

25

Jon Rowe:
1. God doesn't exist;
2. If objective moral values (btw: "values" is a term that implies all Truth is subjective, thus making "objective moral values" an ozymoron) are dependent on something that doesn't exist...;
3. Then objective moral values don't exist -- they are an illusion -- regardless of your or our desire that they do.

Nice, but it isn't really germaine. The post assumes objective moral values exist, and pigeonholes the source on God, inviting others to offer an alternative explanation.

posted on 08.09.2005 5:03 PM

Patrick writes:

26

You have a very Kierkegardian view of Christianity that is quite foreign to the biblical view. The biblical view is not that disbelief is a chasm that must be crossed in blind faith but that faith is the evidence that shows us our need to stop rebelling against our Creator.

They are not incompatible. I do not possess "blind faith", I have a full faith based on the evidence of experience. And I surrendered myself to following God's will before mine long ago. Blind faith is simply the recognition that at some point you chose to believe in God. You made a decision based on what you thought was good enough evidence but still without necessarily knowing for sure that it was the correct one. The process of making that decision for some can be a frighting and insecure experience.

But confidence in ones decision to believe God is not what I see very often here. Instead I see playing out again and again in this blog is endless machinations of facts and events and often rather circular logic to "prove" the existence of God. Thats fine I suppose as an intellectual exercise, but it seems to me to be overly defensive in nature. And completely unnecessary to the everyday business of actually having faith in God. You just don't need to "figure out" God to that great of an extent. In fact, it's unlikely you ever could. Otherwise you would be the very entity you are praying to.

posted on 08.09.2005 5:08 PM

Matthew Goggins writes:

27

Hello Joe,

Thanks for your comments.

Rather than discuss with you doubt and warrants, disbelief and honesty to oneself, I am going to let you have the final word on all that.

I am going to take an indefinite break from getting into theological discussions on this forum. I think I've said pretty much all I have to say about these things, and there probably is not much point in rehashing similar bits of disagreement over again.

I will continue to read your blog, and perhaps leave the occasional comment, but I will leave it to others to discuss the merits of skepticism versus unwavering faith, of materialism versus religious belief, and various other aspects of the nature of objective reality.

Thanks for many interesting discussions. I've learned a lot from the back and forth, and I hope I've been able to make a similar contribution to the understanding of others.

I wish you all the best in your many endeavors.

If anyone wants to chat or contact me, feel free to visit my blog, The Bronx Blogger.

Cheers!

posted on 08.09.2005 5:57 PM

Boonton writes:

28

1. God doesn't exist; 2. If objective moral values (btw: "values" is a term that implies all Truth is subjective, thus making "objective moral values" an ozymoron) are dependent on something that doesn't exist...; 3. Then objective moral values don't exist -- they are an illusion -- regardless of your or our desire that they do.

Can something that exists depend upon something that doesn't for its existence? How about geometry? It seems to exist but it depends on an imaginary world of perfect points, lines, circles etc.

posted on 08.10.2005 9:51 AM

Greg Forster writes:

29

Joe, at one point you say:

"Just so we are on the same page, let me clarify that when I say “truly doubt” I mean cannot not know that there is God."

But at another point you say:

"When I say that people cannot “truly doubt” I mean only that if they truly think things through and follow the evidence where it leads then they will have no reason to doubt."

Do you see how these are contradictary? In the first one, you claim that everyone in fact knows that God exists. To say "no one can not know that God exists" is the same as saying "everyone knows that God exists." In the second one you say that you are only claiming that people *would* know that God exists if they followed the evidence. The second of these I agree with, and no one would have been offended if you had said only that. It is the first one that is offensive, because it is impossible not to conclude from this that anyone who claims not to know that God exists (including atheists and agnostics) is lying about his mental state.

The Bible does not say that everyone knows there is a God. It only says that everyone *should* know - that his existence is sufficiently evident without special revelation, such that everyone is responsible for knowing his existence. It does not say that everyone does in fact know. And it seems to me that ignoring this distinction does a great injustice to the honesty of unbelievers.

I will resist the temptation to post something longer. It is true to say that everyone *should* know there is a God, but it is wrong and insulting to say that everyone *does* know.

posted on 08.10.2005 3:19 PM

Rob Ryan writes:

30

"The idea that certain moral standards are believed to be objectively true is so uncontroversial that it is unnecessary to establish it as a premise. While you will certainly find disagreements about what principles, standards, and values are better, you will never find anyone who truly believes that there are no objective standards."

How can you write this? I have posted many times here my contention that there is no objective morality. Morals are subjective. I'm not the only one who feels this way, either. You tend to ignore truths that interfere with your argument.

posted on 08.10.2005 8:11 PM

Joe Carter writes:

31

Greg Do you see how these are contradictary? In the first one, you claim that everyone in fact knows that God exists. To say "no one can not know that God exists" is the same as saying "everyone knows that God exists." In the second one you say that you are only claiming that people *would* know that God exists if they followed the evidence. The second of these I agree with, and no one would have been offended if you had said only that. It is the first one that is offensive, because it is impossible not to conclude from this that anyone who claims not to know that God exists (including atheists and agnostics) is lying about his mental state.

I see what you're saying but I disagree that the two statements are contradictory. I said that no one cannot not know that God exists. I think that is true. If it were possible for people to not know that God exists then the Bible would be lying.

My second statement only says that people would have no reason to doubt if they would merely follow the evidence. The two are not contradictory. Let me give you an example of what I mean. A concious person cannot not know that he exists. But he can doubt that he exists and if he follows the evidence he will be without sufficient reason to doubt his existence.

The Bible does not say that everyone knows there is a God. It only says that everyone *should* know - that his existence is sufficiently evident without special revelation, such that everyone is responsible for knowing his existence. It does not say that everyone does in fact know. And it seems to me that ignoring this distinction does a great injustice to the honesty of unbelievers.

I'm perplexed at why you take such umbrage at my claim that unbelievers are not being honest with themselves. So if they claim to have followed the evidence and have come to the conclusion that God doesn't exist they are either:

(a) mistaken
(b) not being honest with themselves
(c) The Bible is wrong on this point.

Now I think we both would agree that the answer is not (c). I say it is (b) and you seem to imply that it is (a). If we ask the atheist which is less insulting: (a) that he is mistaken in his reasoning or (b) that he is not being honest with himself and needs to take a closer look at the evidence, I think he'd be equally offended by both of us. ; )

I will resist the temptation to post something longer. It is true to say that everyone *should* know there is a God, but it is wrong and insulting to say that everyone *does* know.

So in your opinion, what is keeping them from knowing? Also, are they being completely honest with themselves if they are refusing to acknowledge the evidence is sufficient or is the bible wrong about them?

Rob How can you write this? I have posted many times here my contention that there is no objective morality.

You, sir, are dishonest, evil, immoral, and unvirtuous. That is why I can write such a statement.

Got your attention?

Okay, now do you think I'm just subjectively wrong about you being dishonest, evil, immoral, and unvirtuous? I'm sure that you disagree but are you really saying that it is just as likely that I am right as you are?

posted on 08.10.2005 11:20 PM

Rob Ryan writes:

32

Yes, Joe, you are just subjectively wrong. My virtue, or lack thereof, is purely a matter of opinion. As you assume, I disagree with your assessment of my morality. I'm not a pillar of moral perfection, but I'm a really sweet guy. ;-)

No, I am not saying it is just as likely that you are right as it is that I am. Like most people, I weigh my own opinion more heavily where rectitude is concerned.

posted on 08.11.2005 6:37 AM

Gordon Mullings writes:

33

H'mmm

I've been busy on finetuning, trying to help out a few on tradition vs reason and burden of proof, and of course with a volcano that's recycling to 95 it seems; while all the fun was going on here!

Yet another target-rich environment. But first, Joe, a perhaps brief persentation, but one that does go to the live-wire issue.

I have a few observations:

1] Technical note:

ALL the comments came up in my load as italicised, is that a bug, there or here in my browser?

2] Jon on Affirming Antecedents:

1. If God did not exist, objective moral values and duties would not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Am I missing something here, or does 3 not necessarily follow from 1 and 2? You're saying "If not A, not B. B, therefor A." Wouldn't that be the fallacy of affirming the antecedent?

--> First, to affirm the antecedent is a VALID argument form: A => B, A, so B. THis is modus tollens.

--> Second, to DENY THE CONSEQUENT is also perfectly valid. Using denial form propositions, ~ A => ~B, but B, so A. This is modus ponens. (The classic fallacy is to AFFIRM the consequent: ~B so ~A.)

--> In Joe's case, he argues using modus ponens, and with denial form original propositions. Dnnying a denial gives the original proposition, ~{~P) = P; so Joe is in order.

3] Inference to Best Explanation:

Stentor: I've enjoyed this series, but I have to say this installment is surprisingly weak.

Joe: Perhaps it isn’t the most strongly argued piece in this series. But it does fall under the category of inference to the best explanation. You might notice that no one has even attempted to give an explanation for where these objective values come from if not from a divine lawgiver. Until such a case is presented, I will continue to believe that this is the best explanation.

--> A serious point! If you would object to the argument, put forth a better explanation, relative to factual adequacy, logical & moral coherence, and elegance vs ad hocness.

--> I am currently rereading Finney's Skeletons of a Course of Theological Lectures, in the Bethany House 1976 edn, The Heart of Truth; and it has an interesting observation on this point, p. 23, in his third cumulative form of the argument:

1. My senses inform me that other men exhibit the same phenomena of which I am conscious. 2. Hence I cannot resist the conviction that they have a moral nature and are accounable like myself. 3. Hence I cannot but award them praise and blame for their conduct. 4. This is a dictate of my moral constitution. 5. My nature then demands that I should regard them as subjects of moral government. 6. But moral government implies a moral governor. This governor is God. 7. Hence the existence of GOd is a dictate of my moral nature.

REM. Upon this argument the common convictions of men in regard to the Divine existence seem to be based, as this argument is admitted previous to a knowledge of any theoretic argument whatever. [IN short, from our earliest days as toddlers, we quarrel by appealing to a common moral obligation, and as a rule, others do not bat this aside as a lion would the pleas of a gazelle, but rather argue WITHIN this premise.]

--> In short, it is an evident fact that we in praxis from our earliest days of conscious behaviour, see ourselves as UNDER moral law. If there is no lawgiver, whence such a consciousness?

--> Worse yet, can we bring forth good evidence that -- not as isolated individuals, but as a society -- men can live a sufficiently virtuous life that society will not collapse if they reject the concept that we are bound by moral principles that are IN PRAXIS objective? [Cf Kant's Categorical Imperative on this -- he derived a principle more or less substantially equivalent to the classic golden rule from the issue of whether a society that acted as "I" propose to would be feasible.]

--> And if such a major part of our mentality is premised on delusion, can we trust ANY of the alleged deliverances of reasoning, reflection on our inner life and perception of the external world? [This comes back to the issue Joe raised in April on the self-referential inconsistencies and absurdities of evolutionary materialist, deterministic-cum chance driven systems of thought.}

--> BTW, in rereading an 1840 work, I am again struck by how little has changed on the issues and arguments since then; what has changed is the dominant worldviews of the elites, thus the plausibility structures that shape public discourse.

4] Rom 1 and Honesty

Joe observes: So in your opinion, what is keeping them from knowing [that God exists]? Also, are they being completely honest with themselves if they are refusing to acknowledge the evidence is sufficient or is the bible wrong about them?

--> First, Rom 1 speaks to this issue pretty directly, and in the eyes of many today, offensively. DO bear with me as I cite what you may find really offensive; there is a serious point to this:

RO 1:1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God . . . 3 regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord . . . . 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile . . . .

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. . . . . 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts . . . 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.

--> IN short, Paul makes several arguments to God in this passage and highlights that the motives and rationalisations for rejecting such arguments render men morally guilty before God:

(a) Jesus is shown to be Son of GOd with power by the resurrection, attested by 500+ ryrwitnesses and the resulting miracle-working, life and culture transforming work of the church [despite all its faults and failings] down to today.

(b) THose who do respond to the gospel show the transformation of lives thereby that mark a power beyond mere human moral upliftment. As 1 COr 6: 9 - 11 amplifies, and as has often -- but not always -- been powerfully demonstrated in the lives of believers across the ages since C1:

" 1CO 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

(c) But, long before we get to the issue of the preached and demonstrated gospel, Paul's view is that men know GOd intuitively: "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." But, in the apostle's further words, "they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened."

(d) Thus, on Paul's view, the commonly professed lack of knowledge of God is secondary, not primary. It is based on denial of evident implications of what we intuitively know about the world around us and our inner lives. {NB: As we can see from going back across the several threads on removing implausibility structures, a fair comment is that the issue is not that there is little or no evidence pointing to God, nor is it that a truely superior explanation has been offered, but rather that there are implications that we find repugnant, so we choose another set of core faith-commitments and exert selectively hyperskeptical arguments. Sadly, we do this regardless of the logical inconsistencies and absurdities relative to easily observed facts and even well-confirmed laws of science [try s = k ln w in light of remarks in http://www.ldolphin.org/mystery/ on this: complex, functionally specified information-righ molecular structures and systems do not spontaneously arise from molecular noise, or even from natural selection, cf. http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8543 ] that flow from it.)

(e) Why? According to the Apostle, it is not that we have a better explanation, but rather we have a morally indefensible MOTIVE at work: ingratitude leading to rebellion. (To set in context, the OT view is that GOd's moral commands are for our own good; we ignore them to our own hurt, and that of our neighbours: Rom 13:8 - 10, Deut. 10:10 - 13, which says that God's commands are "for your own good." See how that rankles? Guess why?)

--> Now, of course, the basic point is that many think Paul is wrong here, i.e. they claim that they have a morally defensible right to the claim that they have no knowledge of God, intuitive, experiential or inferential.

--> But, observe: on such implicitly or explicitly atheistic grounds, does morality as an objective system even exist? Isn't it not, as Tom Clarke and the CFN argue, just genetics and environment determining what we think and feel?

--> Why do such agnostics or outright atheists then feel that they are under such moral government to the point that they all but inescapably award praise and blame to themselves and others? (And, if we in praxis live under moral government, then does that not require a moral governor as its best explanation?)

--> In short, we may deny, hotly, that our claimed lack of knowledge of God is morally suspect relative to what we SHOULD [and instinctively/ intuitively DO] know, but the very heat of our denial is telling.

So, Joe and Paul seem to have a point there. Worth a few thoughts! DOES GOD BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS, and if so, why?

Grace to all

Gordon

PS I keep on observing the statement that athiests can live a moral life, inso far as behaviour to the fellow man is concerned, without acknowledging GOd. THis is an obvious fact; but as a point of observation, I wonder just how common these virtuous atheists are -- I find them a little rare on the ground in my experience of interacting with quite a fair number of atheists [especially in academic contexts; where I have seen far more of power as a decision rule that Kant's Categorical Imperative]. In short, it seems to me that atheists and agnostics join the rest of us in the characteristically human struggle to do the right, in the face of our foibles and frailties and temptations.

posted on 08.14.2005 6:42 AM

Gordon Mullings writes:

34

Oh Yes

On further thought, it may save a bit of unnecessary exchanges over the claims on limitations of natural selection and molecular noise if I excerpt as follows from the AMerican Spectator article. SO, let's put some cites on the table:

1] On probabilities and a universal upper bound on plausibility of the claim that something happens by chance:

It may seem strange, at first blush, to speak of life in terms of "information." . . . But the term "information" is used here in a specially defined way.

For information of that type to be present in an object, Dembski explains, three conditions must be satisfied. These are contingency, complexity, and specification . . . .

CAN COMPLEX SPECIFIED information be produced by unintelligent natural causes? Dembski argues forcefully that it cannot. In every case in which we know the "causal story" underlying complex specified information (writing a sonnet, creating a computer program, or sculpting Mount Rushmore) we know that it has been produced by an intelligence . . . .

As a matter of both theory and experience . . . specified complexity does not come into existence unless it is designed by an intelligence. And, where it exists, specified complexity can be identified either in a rough and ready way (Mount Rushmore) or by more rigorous, probabilistic means. In employing improbability to detect design, Dembski has formulated what he calls the "universal probability bound." This is a number beyond which, under any circumstances, the probability of an event occurring is so small that we can say it was not the result of chance, but of design. He calculates this number by multiplying the number of elementary particles in the known universe (10^80) by the maximum number of alterations in the quantum states of matter per second (10^45) by the number of seconds between creation and when the universe undergoes heat death or collapses back on itself (10^25). The universal probability bound thus equals 10^150, and represents all of the possible events that can ever occur in the history of the universe. If an event is less likely than 1 in 10^150, therefore, we are quite justified in saying it did not result from chance but from design. Invoking billions of years of evolution to explain improbable occurrences does not help Darwinism if the odds exceed the universal probability bound. Why should we care how specified complexity comes about, or how it can be detected? Because all life contains an enormous amount of complex specified information. The DNA in genes and chromosomes that makes up the blueprint for life is basically computer code. The information is contained in long sequences of nucleotide bases . . . The sequence of those bases specifies what proteins will be produced, and how a plant or animal will be produced.

Like computer code or language, the sequencing of those four bases is contingent -- the nucleotides don't bond with the nucleotides next to them in a necessary, repeating sequence. DNA sequences are also complex . . . The amount of information in the DNA of every human cell is greater than the information in all of the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Most importantly, DNA sequences in living things are specified in relation to a function: building a human, animal, or plant that can, at minimum, survive and reproduce.

HOW COULD THIS VAST AMOUNT of complex specified information come about without intelligence? The problem for Darwinian theory is particularly acute with respect to the origins of life. But even after life gets underway, random variation and natural selection can't conceivably generate the magnitude of information necessary, the ID theorists argue.

To take just one example . . . For the first three billion years of life on Earth, only single-celled organisms such as bacteria and bluegreen algae existed. Then, approximately 570 million years ago, the first multi-cellular organisms, such as sponges, began to appear in the fossil record. About 40 million years later, an astonishing explosion of life took place. Within a narrow window of about 5 million years, "at least nineteen and perhaps as many as 35 phyla (of 40 total phyla) made their first appearance on Earth...." . . . . These new, fundamental body plans appeared all at once, and without the expected Darwinian intermediate forms . . . Meyer states that sponges such as those that existed right before the Cambrian explosion probably required about five basic cell types. More complex animals like the arthropods would have required 50 basic cell types. These in turn are dependent on new and different proteins. Citing recent research, he notes that the more complex kinds of single cell organisms might require about a million DNA base pairs to manufacture the necessary proteins. But a complex, multicellular organism such as an arthropod would require "orders of magnitude" more coding instructions. The modern fruit fly is an arthropod, and it has about 120 million base pairs. The odds that this quantity of information could be generated by random variation filtered through natural selection quickly surpass the "universal probability bound."

2] On Irreducible complexity of the classic case:

Surely all one need do is turn to the literature to find the detailed accounts of how the flagellar motor, the blood clotting cascade, and similar biological features were gradually produced, step-by-step, by Darwinian evolution. Modern Darwinism is founded on those kinds of factual accounts. Right?

Wrong . . . Behe the biochemist had the audacity to search the relevant scientific journals, books, and proceedings of meetings to find out what the Darwinists had really proven about the origin of complex biochemical systems . . . Let Behe speak: "None of the papers published in JME over the entire course of its life as a journal has ever proposed a detailed model by which a complex biochemical system might have been produced in a gradual, step-by-step Darwinian fashion." He went on to examine other relevant scientific journals, proceedings of meetings, and books. The result was the same: "There has never been a meeting, or a book, or a paper on details of the evolution of complex biochemical systems." That's quite different from what most of us have been led to believe . . . .

Well, this sent the Darwinians scrambling. Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University who argues in favor of Darwinian evolution, made a splash when he announced (and he bolded the language in his article) that "the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex." . . . According to research cited by Miller, the TTSS is made up of several proteins that are "homologous" to a set of proteins from the base of the flagellum. Miller argued that the injector pump is probably an "evolutionary precursor" to the flagellum, and it is fully functional although it has fewer parts. Therefore, "the claim of irreducible complexity has collapsed, and with it any 'evidence' that the flagellum was designed." The "flagellum has been unspun," Miller concluded.

But there was a little problem with Miller's declaration of victory. As it turns out, the bubonic plague bacterium already has the full set of genes necessary to make a flagellum. Rather than making a flagellum, Y. pestis uses only part of the genes that are present to manufacture that nasty little injector instead. As pointed out in a recent article by design theorist Stephen Meyer and microbiologist Scott Minnich (an expert on the flagellar system), the gene sequences suggest that "flagellar proteins arose first and those of the pump came later." If evolution was involved, the pump came from the motor, not the motor from the pump. Also, "the other thirty proteins in the flagellar motor (that are not present in the [pump]), are unique to the motor and are not found in any other living system." Undirected evolutionary processes do not produce 30 novel proteins, of just the needed kind, to laze around idly in the cell for millennia so that a pump could some day transform itself into a motor. In short, the proteins in the TTSS do not provide a "gradualist" Darwinian pathway to explain the step-by-step evolution of the irreducibly complex flagellar motor. Miller's spin has been unspun.

Thus, many scientists embracing naturalism find themselves in the seeming dilemma recently articulated by biochemist Franklin Harold: "We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity [i.e., Darwinian evolution]; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations."

+++++

Strong claims indeed, especially by Harold, and certainly food for thought as one reflects on whether the claim to have no knowledge of God is morally justified.

Grace

Gordon

posted on 08.14.2005 7:34 AM

Terence Moeller writes:

35

I grappled with this issue while writing my Masters Thesis on Francais Schaffer. As he and Joe Carter pointed out, modern man can not live consistantly within his non-Christian presuppositions. He searches for meaning, values, morals, purpose and destiny while embracing certain philosophic presuppositions (such a relativism) which would preclude them.
Just thought I would throw that out on the porch to see if the cat licks it up.

posted on 08.16.2005 7:00 PM

McDuff writes:

36

If objective morality exists, why can nobody define it or point to it?

Is an objective morality which exists but is unknowable and indefinable any different from one which does not exist?

If there were such a thing as an objective morality, why on Earth would one assume that the God of Sodom and Gomorrah, who ordered the genocide of the Amalekites, who has a crazy view of who is innocent and who is guilty, would be the Go To guy for advice on what it is?

Your axioms are not axioms. They are unsubstantiated assumptions and there is no logical merit in asserting them as simply true and uncontestable. They are very contestable, and the Bible is no more infallible evidence than the Koran, the Vedas, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

As for your assertion that nobody can doubt God exists, it's ridiculous but, as you pointed out, hardly central to the main theme of your post, and I shan't waste time explaining why it's wrong. Simply contesting your axioms should be sufficient for now.

posted on 08.16.2005 11:40 PM

Gordon Mullings writes:

37

H'mmm

I see an interesting change of cast on commentators. Before commenting further on specifics, I need to follow up on a point linked to my posts on the Sternberg case, as the Office of the Special Counsel has now published its findings, through a letter to him:

Our preliminary investigation indicates that retaliation [against Sternberg by his colleagues] came in many forms. It came in the form of attempts to change your working conditions...During the process you were personally investigated and your professional competence was attacked. Misinformation was disseminated throughout the SI [Smithsonian Institution] and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false. It is also clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing you out of the SI . . . . They also assumed that you [Sternberg] violated editorial regulations of the Proceedings because you were the primary editor of the article. These comments were made to and by SI and NMNH managers and were published to several outside organizations. It was later revealed that you complied with all editorial requirements of the Proceedings and that the Meyer article was properly peer reviewed by renowned scientists. As an aside, the information received by OSC does not indicate that any effort was made to recall or correct these comments once the truth was made known.[cited: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/klinghoffer200508160826.asp ]

This is both quite sad and quite revealing, as the contrary had been so publicly declared by the Smithsonian. Indeed, it is VERY revealing that Meyer's paper on the implications of the Cambrian explosion [as excerpted above from the Spectator article] was in the opinipon of the OSC, properly peer reviewed by distinguished scientists.

The Smithsoniuan's senior staff have both failed to deal justly with Mr Sternberg, and have further failed to correct slanderous information they have helped promulgate about him. Those actions are the work of thought police, not truth-seeking scientists. Sad. Read the linked article, it is very important.

Now, on points raised . . .

1] Terence: I grappled with this issue while writing my Masters Thesis on Francais Schaffer. As he and Joe Carter pointed out, modern man can not live consistantly within his non-Christian presuppositions. He searches for meaning, values, morals, purpose and destiny while embracing certain philosophic presuppositions (such a relativism) which would preclude them.

--> Great to see you back in action! Over on the finetuning thread, I had asked you for your volcano story. (Ours has had the MVO svcientists do a 180 degree turn in the past several weeks, after some pretty sharp rhetoric directed against those who asked some questions and raised concerns. Long story.)

-> I think you are right, and Dr Schaeffer was right. We cannot but live by expectations of fair play, but on evolutionary materialist premises, these have no foundation. (Notice the dead silence on my remarks above going all the way back to Finney?]

--> My own favourite approach to the topic is from the angle of rights:

1] We assert that we have rights, i.e. binding expectations as to how we OUGHT to be treated, based on our dignity and value as persons.

2] Oughtness, of course, is a moral claim: in effect, your RIGHT to life, liberty, property, reputation [cf above on Sternberg -- NB: Dr Lord needs to clarify his earlier dismissive and even abusive remarks in this blog!] etc, is a claim that I have a DUTY to respect your life, liberty, property, reputation etc.

3] But, on evolutionary materialist premises, what BASIS is there for an accidental product of a chance process to claim that it has "rights" and "value"? [At most, through political processes and winning fights, it can be said that there are entitlements and there are workable pragmatic compromises . . . but these cut across the very point of the claim, RIGHT: that even the weak and vulnerable OUGHT to be so respected.]

4] Thus, we see that the testimony of our consciences and behaviour from early childhood, that we have RIGHTS, is a strong testimony that we have that inherent value that can only be successfully rooted in our being created in the image of God.

5] So, the secod meaning of self-evident bites deeply in " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creatror with certain unalienable rights . . . that to protect these rights is the purpose of Government . . ." That is, walk away from the Creation-based framework, and you end in absurd inconsistencies in thought and life.

--> I think this context should give us pause on the topic in view.

2] McDuff: If objective morality exists, why can nobody define it or point to it?

--> This is a bald assertion in the teeth of much evidence across the ages and indeed even in your own experience, as just noted.

--> For, I am fairly sure that you have observed or even engaged in disagreements over your lifespan -- indeed, your post is a case in point.

--> In that post, you have implied that there is an OUGHTNESS about fair play in argument: truthfulness and good logic. Such an oughtness, even in the part of those who dispute it is strong evidence that there are objective values.

3] Is an objective morality which exists but is unknowable and indefinable any different from one which does not exist?

--> In this second claim, you wish to declare that moral values are unknowable and indefinable; but, in making the post, you yourself demonstrate that you know and define and expect that we know and accept the intellectual virtues ofd truthfulness, soundness etc.

--> Thus, your claim, sadly, is self-referentially absurd. That is, it reveals that the claim that objective morality exists and is sufficiently definable to be material, is self-evident.

4] Your axioms are not axioms. They are unsubstantiated assumptions and there is no logical merit in asserting them as simply true and uncontestable. They are very contestable, and the Bible is no more infallible evidence than the Koran, the Vedas, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

--> You have here, in turn, stated your own views on the matter as if they were default assumptions or indisputable truths. So, whose should we pick?

--> The answer, if you have been tracking back to the beginning od the series, is that we have to make choices across live options, in light of comparative difficulties, seeking the best explanation. As Joe onbserved in this post:

As we near the end of this series, I want to ensure that the purpose is properly understood. My aim is not to “prove” the existence of God, for that would be a laughably presumptuous task . . . . But I think that there are indeed certain things that appear, at least on the most basic level, to be rather uncontestable and incapable of being truly denied by any human. The set of such propositions is relatively small and there are only three that I would claim to know for certain: “I exist”; “there is an objective standard of good”; and “God exists.” The last point may still be doubted but, as I hope to show, to do so requires denying the second claim as well. For if God does not exist, we cannot be “good.” . . . .

If they were being consistent, the atheist would have to conclude that, yes, moral principles are ephemeral and non-binding. Fortunately, most atheists – like Christians -- do not act in ways that are completely consistent with their beliefs. They continue to act as if morality was binding even though their worldview provides no rational justification for believing such a claim.

The idea that certain moral standards are believed to be objectively true is so uncontroversial that it is unnecessary to establish it as a premise. While you will certainly find disagreements about what principles, standards, and values are better, you will never find anyone who truly believes that there are no objective standards.

--> here, the point is made that in effect our behaviour belies our declarations: "Yuh unfair me!" is the cry of the offended human heart, and by that cry we reveal that we do in fact universally believe in objective and knowable moral principles.

--> As already noted, there are systems oif thought that do lead to the inference that this claim is a delusion, as such values "really" are only relative to accidents of personality or culture etc; but that only leads to a further absurdity.

--> For, if such a large chunk of our mentality is delusional, what is there about our cognition that we can trust, including the very thoughts of atheism that led to the assertion. [Cf Plantinga's paper on this broader issue: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/naturalism_defeated.pdf ]

--> Nor does the red herring about the God of the Bible doing things that we find offensive help: for, we are not even beginning to address that issue in this post! This is on philosophy, not Bible difficulties. (Besides, the role of God as supreme judge over individuals and cultures who have so filled the cup of their iniquity that their very land will now vomit them out has to be faced, as does the love of God who in mercy died in outr place as a sinless substitute and redeemer. (Mrs Graham's point that if God does not severely judge American Culture, he owes an apology to Sodom and Gommorrah should give pause.) That there are over 500 eyewitrnesses to the resurrection and a church emerging from this astonishing event that continues to work miracles in His name down to today are also not inconsiderable on the sidebar point.)

5] As for your assertion that nobody can doubt God exists, it's ridiculous but, as you pointed out, hardly central to the main theme of your post, and I shan't waste time explaining why it's wrong.

--> Joe has not said that no-one can doubt that God exists, but rather, the very opposite:

I think that there are indeed certain things that appear, at least on the most basic level, to be rather uncontestable and incapable of being truly denied by any human. The set of such propositions is relatively small and there are only three that I would claim to know for certain: “I exist”; “there is an objective standard of good”; and “God exists.” The last point may still be doubted but, as I hope to show, to do so requires denying the second claim as well. For if God does not exist, we cannot be “good.”

--> In short, unfortunately and I think inadvertently, you have tilted at a strawman.

--> Joe has not said the existence of God cannot be doubted, but rather that such a doubt is ill-founded as it leads to an absurdity: the denial of the objectivity and thus binding nature of values; a point that even your own behaviour in this thread is a strong testimony of.

6] Simply contesting your axioms should be sufficient for now.

--> This echoes an underlying problem in phiosophy since C17: the idea that if I can doubt I can dismiss. But in fact, we can doubt any and everything, ending in absurdity; so we in praxis only selectively apply radical doubt to those things we do not wish to accept. (Or else, we have to dounbt our memories, perceptions, mental processes etc as they too are just as contestable; cf above.)

--> Here is the classic statement:

DesCartes: It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since constructed on this basis . . . [So I] must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundations, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structures in the sciences . . . . reason already persuades me that I ought no less carefully to withhold my assent from matters which are not entirely certain and indubitable than from those which appear to me to be manifestly false, if I am able to find in each one some reason to doubt, this will suffice to justify my rejecting the whole. [Meditations on First Phil, 1640]

--> But of course, DesCartes should therefore doubt his memories that he had been mistaken -- as memory is not indisputably truthful. Since he had made mistalkes in his earlier reasoning, he should now doubt his ability to reason . . . but isn't doubting itself a deliverance of the mind, so should he not doubt that too? And more, No wonder Lord Russell and others have long since shown that such radical doubt is self-referentially absurd.

--> But, the bold asertion of doubt is a powerful rhetorical tool in a world that thinks that we have to PROVE what we conclude. Okay, start with abstract claim A: why accept it? because of B of course. But, what about B? Well, there is C, D, . . . .

--> So in the end, we either face an absurd infinite regress or else we stop at first plausibles, F, our point of faith. At that level, we seek to have properly basic beliefs, and we compare difficulties across live options to see which explanation is best.

--> That is what Joe is doing, and that is perfectly proper, indeed, earlier in the series, he cited Plantinga as follows on theistic arguments:

In God and Other Minds, I argued first that the theistic proofs or arguments do not succeed. In evaluating these arguments I employed a traditional but wholly improper standard: I took it that these arguments are successful only if they start from propositions that compel assent from every honest and intelligent person and proceed majestically to their conclusion by way of forms of argument that can be rejected only on pain of insincerity or irrationality. Naturally enough, I joined the contemporary chorus in holding that none of the traditional arguments was successful. (I failed to note that no philosophical arguments of any consequence meets that standard; hence the fact that theistic arguments do not is of less significance than I thought.) I then argued that the objections to theistic belief are equally unimpressive; in particular, the deductive argument from evil (the argument that there is a contradiction between the existence of God and the existence of evil), I said, is entirely unsuccessful. So I saw, as I thought, that neither the arguments for the existence of God nor the arguments against it are conclusive [i.e. demonstrative from indisputable premises]. (Warranted Christian Belief, p. 62.)

--> To escape such absurdities as just discussed or question-begging selective hyperskepticism, we need instead to focus on comparative difficulties across live options, relative to factual adequacy, cohernce and explanatiory elegance vs ad hocness.

--> Thus, we look at the logic of abduction, i.e. inference to best explanation, given human limitations on thinking in general. Cf my remarks at http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Intro_phil/toolkit.htm

Grace

Gordon

posted on 08.17.2005 5:59 AM

McDuff writes:

38

What self aggrandising bullhockey. Still, from someone so vigourously pushing ID I suppose this is par for the course.

"In that post, you have implied that there is an OUGHTNESS about fair play in argument: truthfulness and good logic. Such an oughtness, even in the part of those who dispute it is strong evidence that there are objective values.

There is no more objective need for me to use logic and truthfulness than for me to use English. I could argue the point in Swahili, Arabic, or a made up language which only I understand, but this thread is ostensibly a discussion and I must therefore take it as read that there will be a number of commonly held assumptions, and some further rules by which we will all play. We agree to put things in the language of English, and to use rules of constructing our ideas that are logical and rational. If we do not do this, we might as well be all standing on mountains and shouting at each other in a language of our own choice.

Logic is a useful convention. It is no more objective than English. However, the fact that it is subjective and invented as an aid to human communication does not make it useless, any more than English's transience and evolution make it useless in the here and now. I do not claim that there is a supreme oughtness to using logic, that the universe will be rent assunder if you do not, just that if you don't you'll be, at best incomprehensible, and at worst you'll look like a complete tool who can't argue his way out of a damp paper bag.

In this second claim, you wish to declare that moral values are unknowable and indefinable; but, in making the post, you yourself demonstrate that you know and define and expect that we know and accept the intellectual virtues ofd truthfulness, soundness etc.

Stuff and nonsense, and in fact perhaps even evidence that you neither know nor care what "objective" means. That there are moral virtues of telling the truth does not mean that such moralities are engraved into the atoms of the universe. What it means is that there is a convention among humans that we have agreed, amongst ourselves, that some things are true and that others are not. If I point to a chair and call it a hamster, I am "wrong" not because of the existence of Platonic perfect forms for comparison, but because I am talking nonsense and substituting random nouns in to places which might make sense to me but won't help anyone else understand what I am talking about. The existence of subjective moralities is not evidence for the existence of an objective morality.

The question is put to you in a different form. If an objective morality exists, what is it? What are the rules that form an objective reality? Is it wrong to kill, and if so, are there exceptions? Can you prove that the rules you present as an objective, universal, no backsies guide to what is exactly right and exactly wrong in all circumstances and situations is the objective, universal morality engraved fundamentally into the heart of the universe, or does it have the same proof for its objectivity as any other morality that sounds half good? Can you prove that if human beings all simultaneously decided the objective morality to be incorrect that it would still exist?
You have here, in turn, stated your own views on the matter as if they were default assumptions or indisputable truths. So, whose should we pick?
Again, I have done absolutely nothing of the sort. The assertion is as follows: your assertions are contestable. The claim was that these three axioms were proof for the existence of God because they were uncontestable. I contest them. I challenge them. You either defend them, and not with such tedious farting around and claiming that consensus implies objective truth, or the axioms should be abandoned, as it has been demonstrated, not objectively untrue, but false according to the bounds of the argument.

So I say again. If objective morality exists, point to it and tell me what it is.

But, the bold asertion of doubt is a powerful rhetorical tool in a world that thinks that we have to PROVE what we conclude. Okay, start with abstract claim A: why accept it? because of B of course. But, what about B? Well, there is C, D, . . . .

What are you saying here? That the fact that you say it's a reasonable assumption, based on your human biases and your human interpretations of the evidence at hand, that there is an objective reality should be good enough for the rest of us? Subjective statement after subjective statement stacked atop another in an effort to prove that somehow all these subjective experiences -- what is essentially a long description of your personal opinion -- when taken in totality, somehow add up to a universal and uncontestable Truth? There's a leap of reasoning you've definitely missed somewhere.

So in the end, we either face an absurd infinite regress or else we stop at first plausibles, F, our point of faith. At that level, we seek to have properly basic beliefs, and we compare difficulties across live options to see which explanation is best.

Faith is an assumption, not a truth. You have faith in the rightness of the Bible, others have faith in Zen, others have faith in the fact that they will go to heaven when the bombs explode.

You are right in that doubting everything leads to everything being doubted -- as Descartes pointed out, the only thing we cannot doubt is Cogito Ergo Sum. The existence of doubt implies the existence of a doubter. Everything else is fair game to be accused of falsity.

Where Descartes and others, including yourself, have fallen down, however, is in trying to prove that which could be false to be self-evidently true by fudging past this with seeming things and assertion from your own authority. The thing is, we cannot be absolutely certain that we are not entirely decieved, but for all intents and purposes it doesn't matter, because even if we are deceived we must behave as if we are not. If hunger is imaginary, I either imagine I eat or I imagine I starve to death, and the deception is strong enough that I cannot change the rules and imagine I do not need to eat to survive. We therefore make certain baseline assumptions about reality, not because they are self-evidently true, but because they are the only assumptions that it is useful for us, in the here and now, to make. The fact that we cannot usefully believe otherwise about the world does not make them objectively true, but our best guess based on incomplete information. That is a lame standard for an objective and infallible truth.

Your belief in an objective morality no more proves that there is an objective morality than your belief in God proves there is a God. You may find it useful to believe in such things, I think there is sufficient evidence that morality is, like language, simply another method by which we continue to exist as a species of individuals. Since I cannot pick up this objective morality, taste it, define it, hold up things critically to it and hence have a metric to measure everything on the world as unshakably right and unshakably wrong, I find the idea to be entirely useless, without cash value that I can spend in the world, and hence discard it as a beard-strokingly trite frippery.

On the other hand, if you can tell me what this objective morality is, and prove that it is indeed objective, i.e. that it exists independently of what anyone thinks of it, then that would be an argument. Have at it, sir.

posted on 08.17.2005 7:31 AM

McDuff writes:

39

The fact that all comments are italicised on this blog is objectively bad design, though.

posted on 08.17.2005 7:53 AM

Gordon Mullings writes:

40

McDuff

I see your latest remarks. I will briefly comment; noting first that something seems to be wrong with this thread, as in other threads not all comments are italicised; as I noted earlier to Joe.

Now on points:

1] There is no more objective need for me to use logic and truthfulness than for me to use English. I could argue the point in Swahili, Arabic, or a made up language which only I understand, but this thread is ostensibly a discussion and I must therefore take it as read that there will be a number of commonly held assumptions, and some further rules by which we will all play

--> This dodges the sharp difference between "if i wish to communicate, I must use intelligible comments" and the OUGHTNESS that underlies the force of arguments. If people face no oughtness relative to soundness -- and your rage at ID advocates is plain -- then why argue at all?

2] Logic is a useful convention. It is no more objective than English. However, the fact that it is subjective and invented as an aid to human communication does not make it useless, any more than English's transience and evolution make it useless in the here and now

--> This contrinues a category confusion, and takes it up into logic.

--> Unfortunately, language reflects the facts of existence, and therefore is in part founded on logic. For instance, sentences are basewd by and large on subjects, actions and objects: who acts, in what way, to what result or on what. Thus, clear distinctions are made, the first step in logic.

--> More broadly, the law of non-contradiction is not an arbitrary convention: is that fast-moving car rushing at me both there and not there at the same time in the same sense? If you accept that as so, and therefore ignore the evidence of your senses and mind, CRASH.

--> That your first resort is to rejection of objectivity of reasoning and the study of good reasoning as more than mere convention, is telling.

3] That there are moral virtues of telling the truth does not mean that such moralities are engraved into the atoms of the universe. What it means is that there is a convention among humans that we have agreed, amongst ourselves, that some things are true and that others are not.

--> On the contrary, you will see that I adverted to Kant's Categorical Imperative, CI. In its first formulation, that asserts that a maxim of action should be universalisable otr else it is categorially wrong. For instance, if I make no distinction between lying and truth, then the trust required for communication collapes in society and society, which critically depends on communication, collapses.

--> So, the distinction between lying and truthfulness is important, and objective. For instance, in Jamaica, unfortunately, many resorted to writing checques without funds to back it up; as a result, the system of current accounts has largely collapsed. in other words, we can show objectivity exists about morality. (Indeed, the CI is a form of the clasic GFolden Rule, and illustrates some of its underlying logic.)

--> Secondly, your immediate resort is to material reality, reflecing your evident underluying evolutionary materialistic thinking. The objectivity of morality is not a material but rather a mental issue. (And if you would reduce mentality to an epiphenomenon of chance-driven and deterministic material processes, you end up in the situation that thought itself dreduces to delusion. The Plantinga cite above discusses in more details on this point.)

4] The question is put to you in a different form. If an objective morality exists, what is it? What are the rules that form an objective reality?

--> I have just goiven you a general example in point.

--> On killing, the issue is that it is wrong to MURDER (what Elizabethans used "kill" to denote; they used "slay" as we do "kill" today.) Surely, the distinction between justifiable self-defense and murder is sufficiently objectively clear in general to be recognised in law. [BTW: this also reflects how law is founded on the objectivity and power of morality, especially justice, otherwise it will fail for lack of support.]

5] The assertion is as follows: your assertions are contestable. The claim was that these three axioms were proof for the existence of God because they were uncontestable. I contest them. I challenge them.

--> I have already pointed out Joe's context and specific words on the subject: inference to best explanation, in a context where as Plantinga observed, no major issue in Phil has been settled to the point of the sort of demonstrative proof you demand; for as has long since been shown, one simply rejects the conclusion to challenge the premises.

--> The interesting issue, thus, is not in "it's not demonstrative" but in the implication of the need for first plausibles: which alternative is best founded relative to factual adequacy, coherence and elegance vs ad hocness?

--> Further to this, the issus is that the rejection of objective morality lands one in absurdities, as you have again illustrated; thus, we live as subjects of moral governance, implying a moral governor. You reject that and end in absurdities, i.e. incoherence and inadequacy relative to plain facts demonstrated by your very intensity of rage that demonstrative proofs have not been offered. That seems to line up very well with the point that morality is objective!

6]Subjective statement after subjective statement stacked atop another in an effort to prove that somehow all these subjective experiences -- what is essentially a long description of your personal opinion -- when taken in totality, somehow add up to a universal and uncontestable Truth? There's a leap of reasoning you've definitely missed somewhere.

--> This is a very interesting and revealing attempted rebuttal of the following abstract chain of reasoning:

we accept A, why? because we accept B that entails A. Why accept B? because of C, D etc. Thus, we have a choice: (1) infinite regress, (2) circularity, (3) stopping the chain at F, our first plausibles, which we trust though we cannot prove. Then we can compare sets F1, F2, F3 etc on a CD basis and see which makes best sence, thus avoiding circularity.

--> Sir, maybe you use "subjective" idiosyncratically to embrace such an abstract and general chain of reasoning, but that simply and sadly reflects the bankruptcy of your thought. Do you have a set of first plausibles that are beyond dispute?

--> Recall, between 1880 and 1930 the best established theory in science fell apart, leading to the relativistic and quantum worlds, thence the concept of paradigms and p-shifts. Similarly in 1930, Godel showed the limitations of axiomatic mathematical systems; the foundation ever since Euclid. That is, we have pretty objective evidence on the point: we all live by faith in first plausibles, and are perfectly rational to do so.

--> Further to this, you will see from the above posts that neither Joe not I nor Alvin Plantinga have asserted that any phil system or argument is uncontestable; just that on a comparative difficulties basis, some make better sense than others. Indeed, that is precisely why we are discussing in terms of inference to best explanation across live options.

--> perhaps a quick note on the logic od abduction will help. Observed, but puzzling facts O1, O2, . . . On cry out for sense-making. but if proposed explanations E1, E2, E3, E4 are examined, which appear to be live options, we see that E2 is logically incoherent, so cannot explain anything [one half refutes the other]. E3 is ad hoc -- it requires that we patch E repeatedly with claims that are only supported by the fact that if we add yet another patch, the system will hold air a little while longer. E4, simply cannot cover certain facts. But, E1 is elegantly simple, coherent and covers the facts, making in addition excellent predictions that are observed when tested, P1, P2, . . . Pm. Thus, of the live options, E1 is the best current explanation.

--> But, too, E1 has not been proved as the logical implication and the empirical support run as counterflows. So, E1 is the best CURRENT explanation, and we trust it until a better one comes along. (However, in fact, most of our life is lived this way, and so many of our explanations are so highly trusted that we denote them as moral certainties, as opposed to demonstratively proved claims.)

--> That is the sort of exercise we are undertaking, as can be easily seen from the original post and from earlier comments. You arre tilting at a strawman.

7] Faith is an assumption, not a truth . . . . as Descartes pointed out, the only thing we cannot doubt is Cogito Ergo Sum. The existence of doubt implies the existence of a doubter. Everything else is fair game to be accused of falsity.

--> In fact, as I showed above, paraphrasing Lord Russell etc, you can doubt cogito ergo sum: is the memory involved indisputable? The reasoning faculty?

--> Your "fair game" remark is revealing as to the relevance of my point: you are selectivcely disputing claims you ewish to rejhect, when in fact the epistemic status of all beliefs of relevance would be the same were you consistent. That is an example of comparative difficulties at work.

8] Where Descartes and others, including yourself, have fallen down, however, is in trying to prove that which could be false to be self-evidently true by fudging past this with seeming things and assertion from your own authority.

--> No such attempt to prove the unprovable but trustworthy has been made. instead, it has been pointed out thaton a compariative difficulties basis, certain explanations are superior; and that rejecting them in favour of certsain proposed live options ends in absurdities of thought and life. This thread is proof enough of the force of this point.

8] We therefore make certain baseline assumptions about reality, not because they are self-evidently true, but because they are the only assumptions that it is useful for us, in the here and now, to make. The fact that we cannot usefully believe otherwise about the world does not make them objectively true, but our best guess based on incomplete information. That is a lame standard for an objective and infallible truth.

--> In short, first you concede that we do live by faith in first plausibles, and in the practical necesity of such if we are to live.

--> I need not again repeat why objectivity is not to be confused with the chimera of proof beyond contest by a sufficiently determined doubter who is willing to pose arguments that contradict how he lives. But I will note that when this becomes a wilful practice it becomes intellectual hypocrisy.

--> Now, objective truth is that which best passes the reasonable tests we can make, some of it to the point of moral certainty. If that is "all" we can have in the world of finite and fallible humans, then it is an empty cavail to dismiss what we have as a lame standard.

-> But in fact, we trust our lives and souls, rotinely to these "lame" truth-claims: as you are, whether or not you acknowledge it. So, why the inconsistency across what you would accept and what you wish to reject? Coulds ytou be inadvertently begging a few questions here by failing to apply comparative difficulties? [Cf http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Intro_phil/toolkit.htm ]

--> On A CD basis, the fact that you have to live by a standard you dismiss in arguing, e.g. the objectivity of moral duty in argument, is all too telling. If you cannot but live under moral governance, does that not imply a moral governor as the best reasonable explanation?

--> BTW, I and millions of others across the ages have met and know that moral governor, who has transformed our lives through that encounter. Some of us have been central to intellectual and general history: are you willing to jump to the explanation that all of us are delusional? [And in a context where the finetuning of the cosmos and the irreducible, functionally specified complexity of life testify again in support. Cf previous threads in this series.]

That looks like an interesting cumulative case to me: a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, but a rope by twisting and countertwisting weak short strands gains both length and strengh.

Grace open your eyes

Gordon

posted on 08.18.2005 7:07 AM

McDuff writes:

41

Firstly, let's try this.

Italics off?

posted on 08.18.2005 1:21 PM

McDuff writes:

42

Well, that didn't work.

These comments are getting too long and waffly for my tastes. Let's cut to the chase.

On killing, the issue is that it is wrong to MURDER (what Elizabethans used "kill" to denote; they used "slay" as we do "kill" today.) Surely, the distinct