Cold Case Christianity: Wallace fails trying to resurrect Turek's moral argument

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why the University of Miami’s Chair for Atheism Confirms the Existence of God

Posted: 19 Mar 2018 01:02 AM PDT

Two years ago, the University of Miami established the Appignani Foundation Chair for the Study of Atheism, Humanism, and Secular Ethics. It is the first of its kind, filled this year by a former “professor of metaphysics and the philosophy of science at the University of Notre Dame.” Louis J. Appignani funded the position with a 2.2-million-dollar endowment, hoping to “legitimize the word ‘atheism’” in the public sphere by creating a foundation whose “founding principle asserts that the planet will only survive if ‘non-acceptance promoted by faith-based ideology’ is replaced by ‘rational scientific reasoning.’” The creation of this foundation, however, only confirms the existence of the God it seeks to replace.
In the original New York Times article, Appignani (himself a committed atheist) said, “I’m trying to eliminate discrimination against atheists, so this is a step in that direction…” In a recent interview with  The Atlantic he argued that “atheists are one of the few minority groups in the country to still be widely ostracized by society. While other marginalized populations, such as women and LGBT people… are active in American politics, that’s still not the case for atheists.” In essence, Appignani believes that atheists are being treated unfairly, and he funded the foundation in an effort to correct this morally inappropriate, discriminatory behavior.
As a theist (someone who believes in God), I can’t help but wonder what Appignani means by unfair or immoral in the first place. If atheism is true, after all, moral truths are simply subjective.

Morals being mere opinions, doesn't mean they don't exist.  The time you require your kids to go to bed on a school night is completely subjective, but nobody would saw your kids could therefore legitimately object to your parental authority in this on such grounds.   

In other words, they emerge from the beliefs of individuals, or groups of individuals (like communities or nations). Who decides if a behavior is right or wrong? Individuals or communities decide under atheism, because this worldview denies the existence of any transcendent moral judge, like God. But if individuals determine what is right or wrong, how are we to decide what is morally true when two individuals (or two groups of individuals) disagree?

There is no such thing as moral "truth", as morals are mere value judgments, and you might as well say that a grandmother hosting a garage sale is "wrong" to value a used lamp at $5.   There is no objective basis upon which to assign such value, which is precisely why people at garage sales often haggle.  There's no way to "prove" that the seller is asking too much or that the buyer is offering too little.

While it might be tempting for Appignani to appeal to “rational scientific reasoning,” history demonstrates that individuals can disagree, even on scientific grounds, and moral truths are entirely philosophical, rather than scientific.

And since Christianity is itself divided on exactly those subjects too, it has no more claim to be guided by a God who has the alleged answers to those problems, than secular society does.

If, as atheism must admit, moral truths come from people groups, the majority consensus is all that we can appeal to for direction.

And you cannot demonstrate any higher basis for morality than this, either. That's precisely why cultures and nations change through the years.  There is no objective basis for morality

Regardless, you are a fool to say majority consensus is all we have to appeal to.  Many moral changes can take place, being initiated by the minority and their grass roots efforts.  The U.S. Supreme Court's gay decision in Obergfell v. Hodges was prime case of the minority view eventually replacing a majority view.

As far as moral "guidance", we are guided by our childhood conditioning, the chemicals in our brains and bodies, our fear of jail or consequences, and our instinct, which causes us to agree or disagree with the majority on occasion.

But, when it comes to the way atheists are treated in America, Appignani appears to disagree with the majority consensus.

 There is nothing about atheism that says majority consensus is the only legitimate guide to morality.

He is correct in observing that most Americans are suspicious and distrusting of atheists. A 2016 Pew Research Center Poll revealed that more than half of us would be less likely to support an atheist for President, for example. Another recent study even revealed that atheists are suspicious of atheists.

And Christians are suspicious of other Christians, as testified to most abundantly by the likes of Christian Research Institute and 2,000 years of internal disagreement and finger-pointing.  So?

And here-in-lies the dilemma for Appignani if atheism is true.
If most of us agree that distrust and suspicion of atheists is morally acceptable and fair (and this appears to be the case in America), on what grounds can an atheist object?

We call it "fuck the majority, in this matter we find our own intuition better than the majority view."

To whom (or what) can the atheist appeal?

To arguments that the majority view is worse for society than the atheist perspective.

And you Christians fare no better.  Despite your alleged access to God to resolve moral dilemmas, you have experienced denominational splits on moral and not just theological issues, for 2,000 years.  Apparently, adding a "thus saith the Lord" to whatever moral position you take, doesn't actually solve the problem of the two people disagreeing with each other.

The majority has already made its moral proclamation on the matter, and for every reasoned argument related to “survival of the fittest” (or any other atheistic standard), his or her counterpart could make an equally reasoned counter-argument. To whom or what then could the atheist even appeal for a decision about the rational, reasonability of the arguments?

By analysis of the presuppositions behind those arguments.  Furthermore, you use of polls is just stupid, as atheists come in all moral and ethical flavors, just like Christians.  If the majority of people think Christians are more trustworthy, they are sorely mistaken. 

In both situations, humans would be the final moral and rational arbiters, and if history has taught us anything, it’s demonstrated that humans can find a way to twist their moral reasoning to suit their own nefarious purposes.

Aren't Christians guilty of the same?  You consistently fail to tip the balance in favor of Christianity, Wallace.

Theism offers a better alternative. If God exists, moral truth is grounded not in the minds or opinions of humans, but in the nature of God.

But with so many Christians disagreeing about the nature of God (Calvinists seriously think God infallibly predestined all child rapists to perform they rapes they did, and because of the decree's infallibility, there was no possibility that the rapist could avoid it or choose to act differently), apparently adding "thus saith the Lord" to whatever moral position you take, doesn't fix the problem.  

Christians would hardly be as divided on gun control, birth control, abortion, death penalty, military service, etc, if God existed or was interested in providing them the "right" answer to these moral issues.

And if we assume the bible is the basis for morality, have fun showing from the bible that a 25 year old man, living in a country where adult-child marriages are legal, is morally wrong to marry and have sex with his 8 year old child-bride. God was apparently more worried about homosexuality and bestiality than he was about pedophilia.  Romans 7:7, if it's not mentioned in the Mosaic Law, you cannot show that it is a sin. So why do you believe sex within adult-child marriages would have been a sin in the eyes of the Hebrews living in the days of Moses, Wallace?  

Moral righteousness is a reflection of His Divine nature,

Not if the Christian debate on killing children in OT days has anything to say about it.  Google Lydia McGrew and Matthew Flannagan.  What, does God have a schizophrenic divine nature?  How could Christian scholars disagree about God's morals, if the issue was as capable of definitive resolution as you imply?

and humans can appeal to this nature to decide between right and wrong

 and doing that resulted in little more than a Christianity that become more and more internally splinterred over the last 2,000 years.

Moral reformers like Martin Luther King Jr. (himself a Baptist minister) understood this. He began a movement as an individual who held a minority moral view; he would have been powerless to effect change if moral truths were determined by the majority.

Well you were wrong, most mature adults do not feel constrained to act a certain way merely because the majority happens to see it that way.  Martin Luther could have accomplished his moral reform even if he never mentioned god.  God was added because he was addressing a nation that was predominantly Christian, but the basis for equality of the races is the U.S Constitution, not "god" or "bible".

King, instead, successfully appealed to a transcendent moral standard to make his case.

he reminded a racist America that their own bible said all men are made in the image of God.

That doesn't constitute going to "god" for guidance, that only constitutes appealing to the popular authority for argument.  You can often prove a currently popular mormon belief wrong by appeal to how the original book of Mormon read, or how original Mormonism viewed something...but that is hardly an appeal to "god", except in the eyes if the Mormon.

If Martin Luther King Jr.’s example, as a believer, is invalid to someone like Appignani, he might consider the words of a fellow atheist, C. S. Lewis, who, before becoming a believer, argued against the existence of God based on the injustice he observed in the world. He eventually realized his definition of injustice only confirmed God’s existence:

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?

Easy, people naturally feel anything that inhibits them from doing what they want to do is "unjust".

A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.

Correct, and we all have "some idea" of what actions are morally good/bad.  That hardly implies 'god'.

What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

You were comparing it to your own desires.  Whatever gets in your way, you feel is immoral.

…Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies.” (from Mere Christianity)

But 'really' unjust only goes back to one's personal feeling.  i feel that rape is unjust because the women is being harmed.  I suppose if I had been raised to believe women were of inferior status and their experiencing harm was less important than when a man feels harmed, I might have a different view.  

I hope the new Appignani Foundation Chair for the Study of Atheism, Humanism, and Secular Ethics will begin its study by examining the basis for that thing at the end of its title: “ethics.” They just may find that moral and ethical principles are more than a matter of personal or cultural opinion.

They already know that.  Unfortunately, dishonest Christian apologists often capitalize upon an unbelievers choice to speak in a normal unguarded way.  If I say that rape is immoral, I'm NOT appealing to a standard any higher than the standard I was raised with and the standard of the society in which I live.  And indeed, the world shows us that your mind can be conditioned to believe that actions most Americans view as immoral, are good.  We would not expect the mind to be that malleable if there were some other-dimensional invisible friend planting his absolute values in our hearts.  you cannot blame that on "sin", since in the bible, God instructs his own followers to do things you think are immoral, such as burning teenage prostitutes to death (Leviticus 21:9).  Nothing could be more obvious than that the barbaric morality of the OT reflects absolutely nothing but the minds of the ancient brutes who wrote it.

Transcendent moral truths confirm the existence of a transcendent moral truth giver.

That follows logically, unfortunately, there are no transcendent moral truths.   A grown man having sexual intercourse with a 4 year old girl is not wrong for transcendent reasons, its wrong because of purely naturalistic and subjective reasons; the child needs to grow up to realize the purpose of being conceived and born, and this is threatened if she is raped, and even brute animals instinctively retaliate when their young are treated in a way that threatens their lives (i.e., you don't need to be made in the image of god to recognize that some act is immoral), and the pain caused to the girl is a universal sign that something is contrary to the normal order, that's why we have a sense of pain (which is admittedly not perfect, since not all pain is bad, pain from a workout hurts, but builds up muscle). 

You cannot analyze that situation apart from the sense of conditioned morality you already have.  And you don't have jack shit in the bible to show that sex within adult-child marriages is immoral or sinful, and you sure as hell have no interest in having a scholarly discussion about those few passages that you think proscribe it.

If Appignani’s foundation truly seeks to correct a transcendent injustice such as discrimination, it will first have to admit the existence of a transcendent, just God.

 Nah, we get rid of the transcendent by pointing out that a) our motive to call some act immoral arises from purely naturalistic desires, and b) all talk about any "non-physical" intelligence "transcending" the human level is, as David Hume said, nothing but sophistry and illusion.  Your God is nothing but sophistry and illusion.