Showing posts with label inerrancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inerrancy. Show all posts
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Most inerrantists are blind to the obvious meaning of 2nd Timothy 3:16
Roger Pearse recently gave some insightful comments about the history of the KJV here.
His last comment made me think of my own basic rebuttal to biblical inerrancy. He said:
One homosexual inerrantist once trifled that the "only in the originals" caveat need not be "biblical", but he is obviously stupid: the Christian's view of inerrancy needs to at least correctly reflect what Paul meant in 2nd Timothy 3:16, and they aren't doing this when they exclude copy-inspiration from Paul's comments.
Therefore, the modern-day inerrantist's "only in the originals" caveat is not merely some viewpoint of possibly arguable merit that falls within acceptable hermeneutical practice. The "only in the originals" caveat is positively contrary to Paul's beliefs because it is neither expressed nor implied in his wording, therefore, to insert the caveat into his wording anyway is nothing less than changing what he really meant to avoid falling into the same pit that Paul himself dug. Good luck giving an interpretation of 2nd Timothy 3:16 that seriously insists the specific "only in the originals" nuance is what Paul meant.
Some trifling inerrantist will insist that this present rebuttal doesn't hurt them because they don't adopt the version of inerrancy espoused by Geisler/Archer and CSBI they adopt a more modern form that avoids the pitfalls of the traditionalist notion.
But whether we skeptics are reasonable to view as false the "new inerrancy" , is another subject appropriate to a future blog post. There certainly are a lot of stupid inerrantists out there who adopt the traditional CSBI form of inerrancy, so the atheist goal of "refuting the Christian view" has obviously been achieved in large part by refuting what millions of Christains and their capable scholars have believed for centuries.
I've made obviously significant headway by bulldozing a major Christian position to the side of the road. You're next.
His last comment made me think of my own basic rebuttal to biblical inerrancy. He said:
This claim is not what Christians believe about the scripture. It is merely a strawman, designed to require something that does not exist and never did exist. Jesus himself talked about the rolls of the law as inspired; but these were written by men. However divine inspiration works, it can certainly cope with spelling mistakes, human error, and all the business of living in an imperfect world.This reminded me of my infallible argument refuting the "inerrant only in the originals" belief of modern-day inerrantists, and I posted the following in reply to Pearse. The comments did not show up after I clicked "reply" to we'll have to wait and see whether this was because he already blocked me, or if he elects to approve of comments before allowing them to post. Here's what I wrote:
Your last comment implicates a powerful rebuttal to the modern inerrantist movement represented in Geisler/Archer and the Chicago Statement on Bible Inerrancy.If skeptics can be reasonable to argue Paul did not mean "only in the originals", then they are reasonable to say he accorded inspiration to the copies too, in this case 1st century copies. And since no scholar thinks the 1st century copies of the scriptures were inerrant, we are reasonable to turn away from modern-day inerrantists until they interpret Paul correctly.
Most modern inerrantists sidestep the obvious errors in the bible by imposing a standard that is not reasonably checkable: the bible is inerrant "only in the originals". This amounts to little more than mooting the significance of the obvious copyist errors by fiat.
But in the bible, whenever the authors speak about the divine inspiration of some writing, they never express or imply that they mean "only in the originals".
Therefore, their unqualified statements about scriptural inspiration are most likely talking about the nature of the thing that their contemporaries can actually read and touch...the copies...even if they are also talking about the "originals". That is, the most natural reading of passages like 2nd Timothy 3:16 is that the copies are inspired too. In context Paul is talking about the scriptures Timothy knew in childhood or in the 1st century (v. 15). Obviously, Timothy did not know "the originals". No scholar thinks the pieces of parchment and papyrus that Moses and Isaiah actually set their pens to, survived into the 1st century. The only "scripture" he knew were the copies. Those copies are what Paul is according "inspiration" to, even if he "also" means the originals.
The point is that the sense of copy-inspiration (i.e., the sense that would put the final nail in the coffin of modern-day inerrancy theory found in the CSBI statement) cannot be reasonably excluded from Paul's wording.
If then inerrantists continue standing by their other premise that "inspiration = inerrancy", then because the biblical authors taught that the copies were "inspired", the biblical authors thus also necessarily taught that the copies were "inerrant". The very fact that the inerrantists themselves clearly deny inerrancy to the copies ensures that whatever change they make to avoid the implications of this argument, that change will imply that they have been missing the forest for the trees for decades.
Since they cannot deny the reasonableness of the interpretation, what are they going to do?
Say Paul got it wrong?
Admit the CSBI was framed more out of a desire to avoid the obvious than by concern to be "biblical"?
Admit that the biblical "truth" they've been dogmatic about for decades, was the "wrong interpretation"?
The issue is not whether modern inerrantists can be reasonable to believe they way they do. Maybe they can. The issue is rather whether the bible skeptic's above-cited argument against biblical inerrancy is "reasonable". If not, why not? How does the "the-first-century-copies-were-inspired-too" interpretation violate anything in the grammar or context of 2nd Timothy 3:16?
But if the skeptical interpretation of Paul here is reasonable, it would appear today's inerrantists are (in light of their own commitment to "truth") under a moral compulsion to stop characterizing the skeptical affirmation of error in the bible as "absurd" or "false", to stop pretending biblical inerrancy is "obviously true" or stop being so obsessed about defending it...and to allow that the skeptical view, supra, is at least no less reasonable than their own position on the subject.
One homosexual inerrantist once trifled that the "only in the originals" caveat need not be "biblical", but he is obviously stupid: the Christian's view of inerrancy needs to at least correctly reflect what Paul meant in 2nd Timothy 3:16, and they aren't doing this when they exclude copy-inspiration from Paul's comments.
Therefore, the modern-day inerrantist's "only in the originals" caveat is not merely some viewpoint of possibly arguable merit that falls within acceptable hermeneutical practice. The "only in the originals" caveat is positively contrary to Paul's beliefs because it is neither expressed nor implied in his wording, therefore, to insert the caveat into his wording anyway is nothing less than changing what he really meant to avoid falling into the same pit that Paul himself dug. Good luck giving an interpretation of 2nd Timothy 3:16 that seriously insists the specific "only in the originals" nuance is what Paul meant.
Some trifling inerrantist will insist that this present rebuttal doesn't hurt them because they don't adopt the version of inerrancy espoused by Geisler/Archer and CSBI they adopt a more modern form that avoids the pitfalls of the traditionalist notion.
But whether we skeptics are reasonable to view as false the "new inerrancy" , is another subject appropriate to a future blog post. There certainly are a lot of stupid inerrantists out there who adopt the traditional CSBI form of inerrancy, so the atheist goal of "refuting the Christian view" has obviously been achieved in large part by refuting what millions of Christains and their capable scholars have believed for centuries.
I've made obviously significant headway by bulldozing a major Christian position to the side of the road. You're next.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
My challenge to Robert Bowman on evolution of theology between Mark and Matthew
Apologist Dr. Robert Bowman indicated to me months ago that he did not intend for his blog to be a place where debates of monograph-level intensity should be held. I took that as a compliment, and since that time his unwillingness to allow the public to see my responses at his blog is reasonably interpreted to mean that he would rather not deal with my arguments.
Regardless, in a July 2018 blog post Bowman hailed a book which he thought showed high Christology in the gospel that most think was the earliest, Mark: Jesus the Divine Bridegroom: Michael Tait’s Case for a High Christology in Mark
I posted the following in reply, and since it didn't show up after posting, we'll have to wait and see whether this is because the system is slow, or because Bowman does not want me posting at his blog:
Screenshot:
-------------------
That's all I posted, but I'll add here a table to graphically highlight exactly how Matthew changed Mark's version of Peter's confession to Jesus. Once you read it, it will be hard to resist the conclusion that
------a) Matthew and Mark are not talking about two similar but different scenes, they are talking about a single scene in two different ways, and
------b) Matthew intended to evolve Mark's lower Christology into something higher by adding things not present in Mark's earlier account, things that the average expected first-century Christian reader of Mark, who didn't know about any other written gospel, would never have thought were implied by Mark's wording:
I don't know exactly to what degree Bowman or other apologists will try to milk Michael Tait's case for high Markan Christology, but regardless, they are dreaming if they think any Markan statements that sound like the Nicene Creed erase the above-cited cases where the later gospel authors are clearly dissatisfied with Mark's chosen wording and modify it in ways that not coincidentally make the statements less supportive of low Christology. It will never happen.
At least not until inerrantist Christian scholars like Brooks, Stein and Blomberg stop admitting that Matthew and Luke often "toned down" Mark's chosen wording. After all, the later author wanting to "tone down" the earlier statement is precisely the motive we'd expect in a later gospel author who wishes to update gospel theology. If they didn't think Mark's wording could be reasonably employed to support low-Christology, then tell us, Mr. Apologist...what did motivate Matthew and Luke to "tone down" Mark's language?
Maybe because they thought Mark's gospel was inerrant? Guess again.
Regardless, in a July 2018 blog post Bowman hailed a book which he thought showed high Christology in the gospel that most think was the earliest, Mark: Jesus the Divine Bridegroom: Michael Tait’s Case for a High Christology in Mark
I posted the following in reply, and since it didn't show up after posting, we'll have to wait and see whether this is because the system is slow, or because Bowman does not want me posting at his blog:
In Mark 6:5, Jesus "could not" do a miracle in his hometown due to the unbelief of the people. In the parallel in Matthew, the "could not" becomes a "did not" (13:58).Even inerrantist Christian scholars admit that Matthew here had "toned down" this Markan reference. Brooks:"Mark 6:5 This statement about Jesus’ inability to do something is one of the most striking instances of Mark’s boldness and candor. It is omitted by Luke 4:16–30 and toned down by Matt 13:58."Brooks, J. A. (2001, c1991). Vol. 23: Mark (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System;The New American Commentary (Page 100).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
While inerrantist can forever trifle about this or that, the fact remains that if Matthew did not believe Mark's wording could reasonably support a low Christology, he would hardly have felt compelled to change "could not" to "did not". That particular change doesn't look like it was pure coincidence, because by getting rid of the "could not", the phase no longer implies a limitation on Jesus' abilities.Regardless, Matthew often "corrects" Mark wherein the disciples or Jesus are portrayed in less than favorable light (e.g., Mark 4:38, this version of the disciples' complaint to Jesus during a storm at sea makes it easy to paint them as skeptical of Jesus' love ["Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"], while in the parallel in Matthew 8:25, this is toned down to something that offers no support for the claim that the disciples were skeptical of Jesus' love ["Save us, Lord; we are perishing!").Again, inerrantist Christian scholars admit the version of Christ's words "Where is your faith" in Luke 8:25 constitutes lessening the harshness of the earlier version in Mark 4:40 which said "Do you still have no faith?"---"Luke 8:25 Where is your faith? Luke’s wording lessens the harshness of Mark’s, “Do you still have no faith?” (4:40)."Stein, R. H. (2001, c1992). Vol. 24: Luke (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System;The New American Commentary (Page 253).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.And don't forget this doozy: Mark's version of Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi is short and clearly lacking in convenient theological baggage:27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?"28 They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets."29 And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ."30 And He warned them to tell no one about Him. (Mk. 8:27-30 NAU)But in Matthew's parallel, Peter's confession is more theologically sophisticated, and Matthew includes an entire theological exposition from Jesus on the origin and significance of this Petrine knowledge (the quotes are long to preserve contexts and prevent apologists from pretending that maybe Matthew and Mark are describing similar but different events. Nope, it's one single event told in two different ways by two different authors):13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."17 And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.18 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."20 Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.(Matt. 16:13-20 NAU)The point is that Mark's being the earliest gospel and having such signs of low Christology (i.e., the later gospel authors and their desire to change Markan statements in a way that just happens to create the benefit of making them less supportive of a low-Christology) prohibit apologists from pretending that that signs of high Christology they might find in Mark are the only evidence that counts in any discussion of christian theology "evolving" from low to high over the first few decades after Jesus died. The circumstances under which Mark was authored, how much or little he depended on Peter, how much or little he depended on other sources, etc, etc, are all topics of hot controversy even within conservative Christian scholarly circles. Apologists must honestly admit that when Matthew and Luke change, delete or add to their Markan source, it usually results in the benefit of making a lower Christology harder to support.Therefore, skeptics can and do have reasonable justification to conclude that the later gospel story from Matthew involves some degree of theological evolution from an earlier more primitive form, a form wherein the Markan writer apparently felt more comfortable than today's Trinitarians in making unqualified statements about Jesus' supernatural limitations.
Screenshot:
-------------------
That's all I posted, but I'll add here a table to graphically highlight exactly how Matthew changed Mark's version of Peter's confession to Jesus. Once you read it, it will be hard to resist the conclusion that
------a) Matthew and Mark are not talking about two similar but different scenes, they are talking about a single scene in two different ways, and
------b) Matthew intended to evolve Mark's lower Christology into something higher by adding things not present in Mark's earlier account, things that the average expected first-century Christian reader of Mark, who didn't know about any other written gospel, would never have thought were implied by Mark's wording:
Mark 8
|
Matthew 16
|
27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the
villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples,
saying to them,
"Who do people say that I am?"
28 They told Him,
saying,
"John the Baptist;
and others say Elijah;
but others, one of the prophets."
29 And He continued
by questioning them,
"But who do you say that I am?"
Peter answered and said to Him,
"You are the
Christ."
30 And He warned
them to tell no one about Him.
31 And He began to
teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the
elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three
days rise again.
32 And He was
stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.
|
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea
Philippi, He was asking His disciples,
"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
14 And they said,
"Some say John the Baptist;
and others, Elijah;
but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."
15 He said to them,
"But who do you say that I am?"
16 Simon Peter
answered,
"You are the Christ,
the Son of the living God."
17 And Jesus said
to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not
reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
18 "I also say
to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the
gates of Hades will not overpower it.
19 "I will
give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth
shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have
been loosed in heaven."
20 Then He warned
the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.
21 From that time
Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the
third day.
22 Peter took Him
aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This shall
never happen to You."
|
I don't know exactly to what degree Bowman or other apologists will try to milk Michael Tait's case for high Markan Christology, but regardless, they are dreaming if they think any Markan statements that sound like the Nicene Creed erase the above-cited cases where the later gospel authors are clearly dissatisfied with Mark's chosen wording and modify it in ways that not coincidentally make the statements less supportive of low Christology. It will never happen.
At least not until inerrantist Christian scholars like Brooks, Stein and Blomberg stop admitting that Matthew and Luke often "toned down" Mark's chosen wording. After all, the later author wanting to "tone down" the earlier statement is precisely the motive we'd expect in a later gospel author who wishes to update gospel theology. If they didn't think Mark's wording could be reasonably employed to support low-Christology, then tell us, Mr. Apologist...what did motivate Matthew and Luke to "tone down" Mark's language?
Maybe because they thought Mark's gospel was inerrant? Guess again.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Frank Turek's absurd belief in objective morality
Christian apologist Frank Turek increased his popularity with his "Stealing from God" book that he supports with book-tours in which he attempts to argue that morals are objective, so since this requires an objective moral law giver, and atheism provides none, the existence of objective morals necessarily implies the existence of God, hence, atheism is false.
Turek says, in an article entitled Atheists have no basis for morality:
For now, your question was illogically loaded. The only reason to ask an atheist for an objective basis for morality, is because that atheist thinks morality does indeed have an objective basis. Any such atheists are wrong. If atheism is true, morality does not have an objective basis (i.e., a basis that transcends humanity).
Also, the fact that most humans are social mammals logically requires that they find unacceptable any acts that inhibit the thriving and surviving of the members. Murder reduces the numbers of living things and deceases chances of thriving. Rape increases the likelihood of additional children that were not planned and thus strain the group's resources. Since no theory needs to be 100% perfect and explain every last little electron in the universe, the issue is not whether the naturalistic theory is comprehensive, but whether it is reasonable. It is. The naturalistic explanations for why most people find rape and murder to be immoral, are reasonable. Merely calling them 'opinion' does nothing to show the theory unreasonable. Some moist robots have an atomic configuration that motivates them to care about the survival of others.
On the other hand, the explanatory theory that says "God put his laws into our hearts" is beset by far worse shortcomings and fallacies:
What is the reason we cringe at the thought of burning teen prostitutes to death? Because the god who required this in other cultures (Lev. 21:9) has put his laws into our hearts? Or because the culture we are born and raised in can have a very profoundly strong impact in shaping our moral opinions?
Turek's explanation cannot point to any specific empirical evidence of a god putting his laws into our hearts, while the entire business smacks of telepathy and other foolishness that we know is bullshit. At the same time, the naturalistic theory can point to the lower animal world, those who Turek agrees are not made in the image of god, and we find that those calibrated to care about survival of the group, do indeed also find murder and rape unacceptable.
What standard is Turek using to form his belief that rape is objectively evil? It cannot be the bible or 'god', since Isaiah 13:16 would then have God causing men to rape women, that is, have God acting contrary to his own nature.
If you "subjectively wrong", then the wrongness of harming people does not go any further back than the human being who is calling it wrong, and perhaps the other human beings in the world who agree with him. But again, that doesn't establish that the moral opinion is objective.
Most humans are social animals who desire the company and fellowship of other humans. Since unrestrained murder and rape would clearly hamper the human's instinctive goal to both survive and thrive, it is instinctive for humans to view murder and rape as unacceptable behavior. You don't think the insects are made in the image of god, yet the social insects like wasps will attack you if you do thinks to disrupt their social goals, such as throwing dirt clods at wasp-nests. The same is true for most of the higher order mammals. Anything that inhibits their ability to survive or thrive as a group, is automatically deemed unacceptable and deserving of suppression.
You cannot avoid this rebuttal by doing what you do best, and pretending that an endless series of "but how do you know that?" will help you save face. Humans are instinctive social animals, so that is quite sufficient to explain why those who desire most to live in groups agree that things like rape and murder are unacceptable. Questions about how humans were created, etc, are another topic.
And God himself in Genesis 6:6-7 must have come to feel that his prior decision to create mankind was immoral, or else he wouldn't have "regretted" doing so. No, Turek, there is nothing in the grammar, immediate context, larger context or genre of Genesis 6 to suggest that this oassage is an "anthropomorphism", so it is reasonable to take it equally as literally as the other events in the context. In that case, your own God contradicts his own morals, since it was HE who created mankind, and HE who later discovered that said creative act was immoral. If God didn't think creating man was immoral, what does it mean to say God "regretted" making mankind? If you think your prior decision was morally good, could you ever "regret" it? No, not unless you start thinking that decision wasn't as good as you had first thought.
And Christians must be without god, because they are often dogmatic in their moral disagreements with one another:
What now, Turek? Do atheist bible critics have an intellectual obligation to study the convoluted tortured reasonings of Christianity's 500-year old in-house Calvinist-Arminian debate on the biblical extent of God's sovereignty (or the 1500 year old Augustinian/Pelagian debate), before they can be justified to draw conclusions here? If so, how long must the atheist study such debates before they can justifiably draw conclusions about it? 2 weeks? 20 years?
And don't forget, Turek: Calvinists are Christians who say the bible teaches that God secretly wills for us to violate his revealed will:
Then tell yourself that such sophistry does apply in the allegedly real-world situation of your guilt before god. Then tell yourself that the only people who are allowed to invoke the mysterious ways of God to get their asses out of a theological jam are Trinitarian bible-inerrancy-believing evangelical Protestants.
It is reasonable to expect that if the Christian god exists and has imposed 'objective' morals on humanity, he would not remain so silent and hidden from his own genuine seekers, as to facilitate such moral division among genuinely born-again Christians. One reasonable conclusion is that Christians who read the same basic bible and hold the same theological tenets always disagree about moral issues they find to be "important" because there is no objective moral law giver.
As far as the cosmological arguments, Turek has a serious problem: Genesis 1 and 2 would NEVER have caused its originally intended pre-scientific audience to think the "beginning" started with an explosion, as nothing therein is expressed or even implied. Nothing could be a more flagrant example of eisogesis than Truek reading modern science's big-bang theory into Genesis 1-2. He may as well read macro-evolution into it as well. Not only does the Big Bang contradict Genesis 1 and 2 (which set forth God's work as the result of a carpenter or artist), plenty of conservative bible-inerrancy-believing creationist Christians agree the BB is bullshit, such as Institute for Creation Research.
Now Turek cannot say it is the blinders of atheism and rebellion toward god that cause an atheist to be blind to the Big Bang in Genesis 1 and 2, unless he wishes to accuse his own born-again Christian brothers of being atheists.
Even astronomers who disagree with the infinite-space model agree it is at least possible, and that's a serious problem for the lemon-head apologists who want us to think an infinite universe model is "illogical" or otherwise not a valid option:
I end with a challenge to the stupid fundamentalists who believe hell's fire is more literal than symbolic, and who deny any possibility of second chances for those who die after knowingly rejecting the gospel:
Suppose you are the parent of a 10 year old girl who hasn't actually believed the gospel just yet, she simply goes through the motions like so many other kids. She is invited to a church that promotes whatever specific doctrinal bullshit you consider minimally necessary to true orthodoxy. She goes, they tell her the true gospel, they ask if she wants to repent, she says no, and on the way home, while having no personal faith in Christ, dies in a car accident. That is, she died immediately after knowingly refusing to obey the revealed gospel. God then shows you a vision of her being tormented by the flames of hell, and tells you this torture will go on for all eternity, because God thinks 10 years old is the age of accountability for that particular child.
Suppose every time you attend church thereafter and sing songs about God's eternal 'love', God puts this vision of your daughter's real, current, irreversible and eternal suffering into your mind. Your daughter is screaming in mindless agony in this torture-by-fire WHILE you are smiling and happily clapping your hands in church to songs about about the wonderfully comforting love of the God who is, at the same time, torturing your child.
Could you continue worshiping God in good conscience if you had that much precise information about the ultimate fate of a deceased child?
Or did you suddenly discover that the biggest problem in your life right now can be solved by suddenly discovering that the age of accountability is 37?
How to make all these problems disappear in one fell swoop? Become an open theist.
Turek says, in an article entitled Atheists have no basis for morality:
Monday night at UNC Wilmington, despite no cooperation from the school (see my last post), just over 200 people showed up for part 1 of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.Maybe god is punishing you for misrepresenting him and mistaking your marketing bells and whistles for the wooing of the Holy Spirit. Just a thought.
Several atheists asked questions– actually made statements– and struggled greatly when I asked them to offer some objective basis for morality from their atheistic worldview.Then they were not very educated about matters of morality. You won't find the atheist writing at this blog to be struggling, to any degree, to answer your ridiculous questions and challenges.
For now, your question was illogically loaded. The only reason to ask an atheist for an objective basis for morality, is because that atheist thinks morality does indeed have an objective basis. Any such atheists are wrong. If atheism is true, morality does not have an objective basis (i.e., a basis that transcends humanity).
Also, the fact that most humans are social mammals logically requires that they find unacceptable any acts that inhibit the thriving and surviving of the members. Murder reduces the numbers of living things and deceases chances of thriving. Rape increases the likelihood of additional children that were not planned and thus strain the group's resources. Since no theory needs to be 100% perfect and explain every last little electron in the universe, the issue is not whether the naturalistic theory is comprehensive, but whether it is reasonable. It is. The naturalistic explanations for why most people find rape and murder to be immoral, are reasonable. Merely calling them 'opinion' does nothing to show the theory unreasonable. Some moist robots have an atomic configuration that motivates them to care about the survival of others.
On the other hand, the explanatory theory that says "God put his laws into our hearts" is beset by far worse shortcomings and fallacies:
What is the reason we cringe at the thought of burning teen prostitutes to death? Because the god who required this in other cultures (Lev. 21:9) has put his laws into our hearts? Or because the culture we are born and raised in can have a very profoundly strong impact in shaping our moral opinions?
Turek's explanation cannot point to any specific empirical evidence of a god putting his laws into our hearts, while the entire business smacks of telepathy and other foolishness that we know is bullshit. At the same time, the naturalistic theory can point to the lower animal world, those who Turek agrees are not made in the image of god, and we find that those calibrated to care about survival of the group, do indeed also find murder and rape unacceptable.
What standard is Turek using to form his belief that rape is objectively evil? It cannot be the bible or 'god', since Isaiah 13:16 would then have God causing men to rape women, that is, have God acting contrary to his own nature.
They kept trying to give tests for how we know something is moral rather than why something is moral.That's easy. Try the Constitutions and Laws of the country you were born in. They reflect the moral outlook of the majority of the people.
One atheist said “not harming people” is the standard. But why is harming people wrong if there is no God?If you mean "objectively wrong", then harming people isn't wrong, because there is no objective standard governing the question of which human activities constitute immoral harm. Furthermore, "harm" is subjective and requires analysis of context. Doctors cause harm all the time, but most of us say this is justifiable because the harm creates a greater future good. So it is the same in other areas of life.
If you "subjectively wrong", then the wrongness of harming people does not go any further back than the human being who is calling it wrong, and perhaps the other human beings in the world who agree with him. But again, that doesn't establish that the moral opinion is objective.
Another said, “happiness” is the basis for morality. (After I asked him, “Happiness according to who, Mother Teresa or Hitler?,” he said, “I need to think about this more,” and then sat down.)Thus indicating that these atheists were woefully uneducated about the matters to justify pontificating about them as they tried.
This says nothing about the intelligence of these people– there just is no good answer to the question.Incorrect, you appear to have been addressing absolute dolts. The reason you find a lot of people agreeing with you that morals have an objective basis that transcends humanity is because the vast majority of people have never taken an introductory course in moral philosophy. You are dishonestly trading on their strong personal views and their ignorance. Your problem is that the naturalistic explanation for most humans in history agreeing certain acts are immoral, reasonably accounts for all the empirical data, at which point, there is no compelling "need" to invoke god to explain it.
Most humans are social animals who desire the company and fellowship of other humans. Since unrestrained murder and rape would clearly hamper the human's instinctive goal to both survive and thrive, it is instinctive for humans to view murder and rape as unacceptable behavior. You don't think the insects are made in the image of god, yet the social insects like wasps will attack you if you do thinks to disrupt their social goals, such as throwing dirt clods at wasp-nests. The same is true for most of the higher order mammals. Anything that inhibits their ability to survive or thrive as a group, is automatically deemed unacceptable and deserving of suppression.
You cannot avoid this rebuttal by doing what you do best, and pretending that an endless series of "but how do you know that?" will help you save face. Humans are instinctive social animals, so that is quite sufficient to explain why those who desire most to live in groups agree that things like rape and murder are unacceptable. Questions about how humans were created, etc, are another topic.
Without God there is no basis for objective morals.Correct. That doesn't mean subjective morals cannot exist. There is no proving to another person that the subjective morals of modern-day America are "better". All we can say is that if you act contrary to those morals, you will be put in jail or killed.
And God himself in Genesis 6:6-7 must have come to feel that his prior decision to create mankind was immoral, or else he wouldn't have "regretted" doing so. No, Turek, there is nothing in the grammar, immediate context, larger context or genre of Genesis 6 to suggest that this oassage is an "anthropomorphism", so it is reasonable to take it equally as literally as the other events in the context. In that case, your own God contradicts his own morals, since it was HE who created mankind, and HE who later discovered that said creative act was immoral. If God didn't think creating man was immoral, what does it mean to say God "regretted" making mankind? If you think your prior decision was morally good, could you ever "regret" it? No, not unless you start thinking that decision wasn't as good as you had first thought.
And Christians must be without god, because they are often dogmatic in their moral disagreements with one another:
- Does the Christian god think it morally good for a Christian adult to join a worldly military? How long must the atheist analyze this in-house debate among Christians, before they are justified in drawing the conclusion that there is no objective moral law governing the question? 2 weeks? 20 years?
- Does the Christian god think it morally good for voluntary abortion to end a pregnancy caused by rape? How long must the atheist analyze this in-house debate among Christians, before they are justified in drawing the conclusion that there is no objective moral law governing the question? 2 weeks? 20 years?
- Does the Christian god think it morally god for married Christian couples to use condoms? How long must the atheist analyze this in-house debate among Christians, before they are justified in drawing the conclusion that there is no objective moral law governing the question? 2 weeks? 20 years?
- Is corporal punishment of kids morally good? How do you know what level of non-lethal pain is the maximum that objective goodness will allow? Why would Proverbs 22:15 and other passages require striking kids with a "rod", if the level of force it is talking about would not produce any more pain or injury than what could be produced by the "tap" of an open hand that so many Christians think is the limit? Proverbs 20:30 has only good things to say about beatings that produce bruises, and contrary to popular belief, "immediate context" does not always prevail when dealing with Proverbs. While some commentators try to get away from a moral nightmare by pretending that the "immediate context" of Proverbs 20:30 restricts that passage to mere judicial beatings of adults in criminal courts:
20:30 In context this is not parental discipline but beatings administered by the king’s officers as punishment for crime. Yahweh can peer directly into a person’s innermost being (v. 27), but the king can touch the criminal’s soul by harsh retribution.Other equally Christian scholars maintain that the way different Proverbs about different matters are often strung together, you cannot limit what one of them is talking about by appeal to "immediate context":
With the book of Proverbs one can select at random a single verse or two and observe a complete unity of thought in them that may not have any real connection with what precedes or follows. Yet this does not hinder interpretation of its meaning
Ardel B. Caneday, Qoheleth: Enigmatic Pessimist Or Godly Sage?,
GTJ—V7-#1—Spr 86—31
- And if Proverbs 20:30 is extolling the goodness of the criminal receiving bruises and welts from the corporal punishment inflicted by a court....do you agree that human courts achieve objective moral good by physically beating convicted criminals, yes or no? Or did you suddenly discover that god's objective biblical morals don't apply if the culture in question is too different from the biblical culture? Sound like cultural relativism to me.
- How do you know that vigilante justice is objectively immoral, given that Peter in Acts 5:29 appears to have found an exception to Romans 13? If there are pacifist exceptions to Romans 13 wherein you can safely disregard worldly law, then how do you know that pacifist exceptions are the only types that exist? How do you know where to draw the line? What makes you so sure that God doesn't wish to act through you personally to murder the convicted and self-confessed pedophile living locally in your neighborhood? Before you answer, ask how many tears you'd shed if you found that this man was found gunned down in a ditch earlier this morning. You won't exactly be clearing your schedule just to make time to attend his funeral, amen? And your own bible requires that the person who murdered the pedophile was doing the will of God regardless of how the death was actually achieved (Deut. 32:39, Job 14:5).
- Is it morally good to torture babies to death? If not, then you must think your god once violated his own objective morals in torturing to death the baby born to King David and Bathsheba:
13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.The baby obviously wasn't "deserving" of this torture, and yet v. 18 indicates the torture lasted for seven days. Oh, did I forget? This doesn't even qualify as the child being punished for the sins of the father. Before the child was stuck by God, Nathan the prophet said God had "taken away" David's sins (v. 13). God's torture of the baby cannot be considered "punishment" in any way, since the "taking away" obviously operated to exempt David himself from the death penalty required for adultery and murder.
14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. (2 Sam. 12:13-18 NAU)
- If God really is the author of all murder and death (Deut. 32:39) and has set a specific number of days for each human to live, a number they cannot increase or decrease (Job 14:5), then how can you say murder is immoral? If a man pulls out a gun and shoots the Christian bank teller dead, this is also God calling that bank teller home...it is not limited to the earthly perspective of "murder". if those bible passages are true, you are calling God's own actions objectively immoral when you call murder immoral. How long must the atheist analyze this in-house debate among Christians, before they are justified in drawing the conclusion that there is no objective moral law governing the question? 2 weeks? 20 years?
- Does god approve of a legislature taking the death penalty, usually applicable only to murder, and extending it to other crimes such as child rape? Not a few people were angered when a man who nearly fatally raped his daughter, escaped Louisiana's death penalty for that crime when the US Supreme Court found such law to be cruel and unusual.
- Does God think it is moral or immoral that America's courts have a general rule generally excluding hearsay? The fact that most of the bible is in hearsay form and allegedly comes from God, requires that the answer is "immoral". Yet if Christians were to start a movement to overturn the court rule banning hearsay, it would likely trigger a legal war that would produce various degrees of harmful collateral damage, such as wronged Plaintiffs preferring to take the law into their own hands instead of having the matter adjudicated in a court that foolishly allows hearsay.
- If rape is objectively immoral, why does God claim responsibility for causing men to rape women in Isaiah 13:16? Even conservative Christian commentators admit God was "taking responsibility" for these and other atrocities in the immediate context, such as beating children to death:
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.
14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children. (Isa. 13:13-18 NAU)
17–18 As the macabre scene resulting from the cosmic quake passes, the finger points to historical movement. Yahweh calls attention to stirrings among the feared Medes for which He claims responsibility.
What now, Turek? Do atheist bible critics have an intellectual obligation to study the convoluted tortured reasonings of Christianity's 500-year old in-house Calvinist-Arminian debate on the biblical extent of God's sovereignty (or the 1500 year old Augustinian/Pelagian debate), before they can be justified to draw conclusions here? If so, how long must the atheist study such debates before they can justifiably draw conclusions about it? 2 weeks? 20 years?
And don't forget, Turek: Calvinists are Christians who say the bible teaches that God secretly wills for us to violate his revealed will:
If someone disobeys God's revealed will, that's because God "secretly" willed them to disobey his revealed will. (Steve Hays, from Triablogue)
- When we jaywalk, would it be objectively morally good to consider this sufficient to prove us guilty of murder? Before you balk at the stupidity of such a suggestion, read James 2:10-11 for the first time in your life, and ask yourself how feverishly stupid it would be to try and make such careless sophistry apply in real-world situations:
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
11 For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT COMMIT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. (Jas. 2:10-11 NAU)
Then tell yourself that such sophistry does apply in the allegedly real-world situation of your guilt before god. Then tell yourself that the only people who are allowed to invoke the mysterious ways of God to get their asses out of a theological jam are Trinitarian bible-inerrancy-believing evangelical Protestants.
It is reasonable to expect that if the Christian god exists and has imposed 'objective' morals on humanity, he would not remain so silent and hidden from his own genuine seekers, as to facilitate such moral division among genuinely born-again Christians. One reasonable conclusion is that Christians who read the same basic bible and hold the same theological tenets always disagree about moral issues they find to be "important" because there is no objective moral law giver.
It’s just Mother Teresa’s opinion against Hitler’s.That's exactly right. Most citizens of most countries are civilized and have common sense. Nation would not likely rise against nation in war if knowing which morals come from God was the pre-skool matter that Turek pretends it to be.
The atheists’ responses to the cosmological and design arguments– the arguments that show us that the universe exploded into being out of nothing and did so with amazing design and precision– were “we don’t know how that happened.”Once again, you capitalize unfairly on ignorant atheists. That would be like the atheist concluding Christianity is false because of all the stupidity he can find in a KJV Only Pentecostal church that allows its members to play with live rattlesnakes. Stop pretending that defeating an ignorant atheist means defeating atheism. It is illogical.
As far as the cosmological arguments, Turek has a serious problem: Genesis 1 and 2 would NEVER have caused its originally intended pre-scientific audience to think the "beginning" started with an explosion, as nothing therein is expressed or even implied. Nothing could be a more flagrant example of eisogesis than Truek reading modern science's big-bang theory into Genesis 1-2. He may as well read macro-evolution into it as well. Not only does the Big Bang contradict Genesis 1 and 2 (which set forth God's work as the result of a carpenter or artist), plenty of conservative bible-inerrancy-believing creationist Christians agree the BB is bullshit, such as Institute for Creation Research.
Now Turek cannot say it is the blinders of atheism and rebellion toward god that cause an atheist to be blind to the Big Bang in Genesis 1 and 2, unless he wishes to accuse his own born-again Christian brothers of being atheists.
This is simply an evasion of the evidence that clearly points to an eternal, immaterial, powerful, intelligent, personal and moral First Cause of the universe. Since nature itself was created, this Cause must be beyond nature or “supernatural.”Sorry, the arguments for the universe being created, are unpersuasive to say the least, while the evidence that the field of planets and stars extends infinitely in all directions is rather clear from the fact that astronomers continue increasing their estimate of the number of stars with each passing decade: "There are a dizzying 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, up to 20 times more than previously thought, astronomers reported on Thursday."
Even astronomers who disagree with the infinite-space model agree it is at least possible, and that's a serious problem for the lemon-head apologists who want us to think an infinite universe model is "illogical" or otherwise not a valid option:
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So it goes on, but is it infinite? Chuck Bennett is an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University.
CHUCK BENNETT: It is somewhat unimaginable, but quite possible that our universe simply goes on forever.The issue is not which cosmological theory is "true", that is a child's approach. The issue is whether theories of the universe that make it harder for you to "prove god" can be reasonable. They can. It isn't like the infinite universe model is on the order of flat-earth or ancient astronauts.
I end with a challenge to the stupid fundamentalists who believe hell's fire is more literal than symbolic, and who deny any possibility of second chances for those who die after knowingly rejecting the gospel:
Suppose you are the parent of a 10 year old girl who hasn't actually believed the gospel just yet, she simply goes through the motions like so many other kids. She is invited to a church that promotes whatever specific doctrinal bullshit you consider minimally necessary to true orthodoxy. She goes, they tell her the true gospel, they ask if she wants to repent, she says no, and on the way home, while having no personal faith in Christ, dies in a car accident. That is, she died immediately after knowingly refusing to obey the revealed gospel. God then shows you a vision of her being tormented by the flames of hell, and tells you this torture will go on for all eternity, because God thinks 10 years old is the age of accountability for that particular child.
Suppose every time you attend church thereafter and sing songs about God's eternal 'love', God puts this vision of your daughter's real, current, irreversible and eternal suffering into your mind. Your daughter is screaming in mindless agony in this torture-by-fire WHILE you are smiling and happily clapping your hands in church to songs about about the wonderfully comforting love of the God who is, at the same time, torturing your child.
Could you continue worshiping God in good conscience if you had that much precise information about the ultimate fate of a deceased child?
Or did you suddenly discover that the biggest problem in your life right now can be solved by suddenly discovering that the age of accountability is 37?
How to make all these problems disappear in one fell swoop? Become an open theist.
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I challenged "annoyed pinoy" at his blog as follows: 1 comment: barry November 7, 2019 at 4:01 PM I'd like to d...
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"Annoyed Pinoy" regularly posts at Triablogue. See here . He defends the Trinity doctrine at one of his own blogs. I posted t...
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Update July 14, 2017 : In 2008, I posted to another discussion forum several quotes from Holding, showing how highly he lauded the Contex...
https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-general-challenge-to-annoyed-pinoy.html