Cold Case Christianity: Two Signs From Your Opposition Your Argument Is Sound

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace's article

Cold Case Christianity: Two Signs From Your Opposition Your Argument Is Sound

Posted: 23 Jun 2017 01:31 AM PDT

Those of us who acknowledge the self-evident existence of transcendent, moral truth claims (i.e. “It’s never OK to torture babies for fun”) need to be prepared for opposition from unbelievers who anticipate and reject the implications.

Wallace fails, like all apologists, to demonstrate an objective moral basis for his maxim that nobody should torture babies for fun.  Wallace is free to pretend that this is an absolute because so many people agree with it, but then he runs into a brick wall:  human beings do not decide what objective moral values are.  Wallace is free to argue that the reason so many people oppose torturing babies for fun is because God put his laws into our hearts, but this is hardly conclusive, as there's an equally good naturalistic explanation for this moral:  we instinctively know that babies are the key to keeping ourselves from going extinct, therefore naturally, we find it most abhorrent to torture babies for fun, since  to torture them is to reduce their likelihood of survival.


Indeed, if Wallace found somebody torturing babies for fun, he certainly cannot demonstrate that this is offensive to any god, all he can do is point out how most mature civilized adults despise such child abuse, and then, like Frank Turek, insist that no naturalistic explanation can account for why humans recoil from the prospect of torturing babies for fun.

On the contrary, most would agree that if the adult man is having penetrative sex with a 4 year old girl, this constitutes torturing children "for fun", and yet some of the earliest Rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud asserted that such little girls were "suitable for sexual relations", that a girl becomes "sexually mature" at the age of three years and one day, that such a child hates the practice the first two times but likes it the third time, and that girls who are 11 years old or under must use contraceptives during marital intercourse to guard against her becoming pregnant at such a young age. Contrary to popular belief, these rabbinical rulings were serious legal precepts intended to apply to real-world situations, they are not mere thought-expermiments or debates about the outer fringes of the law. Yes, there are other Talmud statements that counsel against pedophiic-marriage, but these only come from the later Rabbis, not the earlier ones.  And a general rule of historiography is that the earlier version is likely more correctly representing the original (Numbers 31:18) than the later versions.

And yes, the Talmud also asserts that all of the virgin girls in Numbers 31:18 who were spared, were "fit for cohabitation".

If objective, transcendent moral laws exist, the need for an adequate source (a transcendent Moral Law Giver) becomes apparent (more on that in future posts). In order to avoid the need for a transcendent Moral Law Giver, some will do their best to deny the existence of objective laws in the first place.

"Objective morality" is a contradiction in terms, because morality is based upon value-judgments that people constantly disagree on, while objectivity deals with concrete truths that cannot be affected by human opinion.

In doing so, they often employ the same tactics used by defense attorneys in criminal trials; tactics that typically signal smart jurors the prosecution’s case is sound. I’ve written an entire chapter about this in my book, but I recently saw two of these tactics used in response to the “baby torturing” claim.

Distract By Focusing on Minutia

After asking the direct question (“Is it ever OK to torture babies for fun?”) in an effort to provide at least one example of transcendent, objective moral truth, a skeptic responded by arguing I was “equivocating on the word ‘OK’” because “‘OK’ encompasses a dozen denotations that do not include objective morality.”

Then apparently the only way you can successfully promote your books, as you do, is to advertise to completely gullible idiots who know next to nothing about philosophy or the law, and then you do this by pretending the most stupid skeptic in the world is representative of how most bible-skeptics would argue.

Sorry Wallace, but I start classifying you like a charlatan tv evangelist from TBN in the 1990's, when you choose to base your conclusions on such absurd premises.

 If you want an example of a smart bible skeptic who could really beat you to a pulp in a real debate, you should ask me that question, and I'd respond by pointing out why you are wrong:  "What do you think the answer a human being gives to that question, is doing to help you establish that morale maxim as objective?  Don't you believe that human opinion is insufficient to establish objective moral truth?"

You may respond that most people agree with the maxim and that the most plausible way to account for such pattern is god putting his laws into our hearts, but I answered that above:  we also instinctively know, no less than the higher mammals, that harming babies/children lowers their ability to thrive, and since it is our natural instinct to thrive, it's perfectly reasonable, with no god in sight, to have problems with a person who tortures babies for fun.

While it’s true I am often philosophically imprecise in an effort to “translate” and communicate complex ideas at a lay-level, I tried to imagine a definition for “OK” that would allow someone to justify torturing babies for fun. Even when I insert a variety of implied definitions for this term, the result seems the same:

“Is it ever morally acceptable to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever legally permissible to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever socially agreeable to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever proper to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever culturally satisfactory to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever emotionally acceptable to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever fair to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever just to torture babies for fun?”

See the problem?

Yes, you've used a stupid skeptic and pretended his dogshit belief is representative of what serious academic skeptics have to say.  Sort of like me promoting my books to atheist high-school drop outs and concluding from the stupidity we see on TBN, that Christianity is obviously false.

No matter which definition for “OK” I use, the answer remains the same. To focus on the term “OK” (as if it were some trick I was trying to employ) is merely a tactic offered to distract from the more important over-arching issue raised by the question.

Discredit Your Opponent’s Character

I responded to the skeptic as respectfully as I could: “I’m trying imagine a definition of ‘OK’ that would justify torturing babies for the fun of it. Which definition are you suggesting? Pick any definition you think works, and help me understand. How about this: Is it ever morally acceptable to torture babies for the fun of it?” The skeptic’s response demonstrated an immediate change in character. He became much more accusatory and described my second rendering of the question as a “shameful tactic”. He even claimed I was being dishonest. He began to focus on me rather than my argument.

Thanks for pointing this out.  Under your logic, internet apologist James Patrick Holding has been admitting, by his shit attitude toward everybody except his donors, that their arguments are likely correct.

Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience. Don’t be discouraged and, more importantly, don’t surrender your character. It’s easy to get “sucked in” to aggressive and demeaning exchanges when people start name calling, but there’s nothing more disheartening for me, as a Christian, than to see my fellow brothers and sisters argue for the existence of transcendent, moral truths while simultaneously ignoring the objective truth that we ought not be disrespectful to people who hold a view different from our own. We can reject their view without being obstinate and abusive.

Thanks again for admitting that as a Christian, you think there's an absolute objective law of God forbidding Christians from being disrespectful toward skeptics.  You clearly think J.P.Holding's demeanor as a Christian is unacceptable and unChristian.  I'll add you to the growing list of his detractors.