I responded to him
here, but in case the comments get deleted, here's what I argued:
Submitted by Brandon Neifert on April 10, 2020 - 3:47pm
"This is why I believe in God."
----that's a non-starter. "god" might have a dictionary definition, but it refers to nothing empirically detectable, and therefore takes its place among fairy tales, worm holes, time travel, and fairies. You are never going to show that an atheist is "unreasonable" to reject anything they cannot empirically detect.
" It is objectively moral to not harm someone."
-----that's the fallacy of argument by assertion. What you stated shoudl be the conclusion to your argument, not the argument itself.
"Just as it's objectively moral to feed and help other people."
-----But unless you'd admit to feed and help terrorists, then there's an exception to the popular moral belief that we should feed and help other people. Answer wrong, and expect the NSA to take a second look at you. Expect everybody else to wonder whether hanging out with you is actually worth the trouble.
"The fact that it's psychologically built in us proves volumes on the evidence for God's existence."
------It is psychologically built into a male cat's brain to rape a female cat. What are you gonna do now, argue that whether rape is morally good or bad depends on the context? If so, that would constitute "situational ethics", the very relativism you are trying to avoid.
"There are naturalists---the Nazis for example---who would disagree with this psychological definition, but we often know them to be objectively bad."
-------"we know" is quite a relative standard, as you are simply excluding the Nazi opinioin as if it was inherently and obviously defective. You haven't shown the Nazi opinion to be contrary to any objective moral, probably because you haven't shown us where this objective standard is. Once again, all you are doing is appealing to popular moral sentiment. But that critiera can be used to sandbag you if you aren't careful.
"Though, if given the framework for Darwinian Evolution, the Nazis would be correct in their assumption that improving the human race would be our only moral goal."
-----No, if darwinian evolution is true, there is no objective moral, hence nobody's moral opinion can
be 'correct', it is just a world full of animals competing for resources, period. "Should" questions are necessarily unresolvable and do nothing more than enable some animals to form groups and otherwise attack each other. That's all.
"But, the psychological foundation of human virtues is something written within us. It's why every culture, just about, had laws and systems of Crime and Punishment."
------Gorillas and apes also abide by certain virtues. Were apes made in the image of god? try that one on a bible-belileving Christian, and discover how belief in God does little more than give other theists a reason to hate you.
"I can find no better proof for the existence of God than morality."
---------A pedophile could say the same thing, while believing it is good to molest kids.
"Freedom is good."
--------But completely unrestrained freedom (i.e., no laws beyond what any person decides for himself to follow) leads to anarchy and social breakdown, which you would probably classify as objectively bad. So what you really meant was that the right balance of freedom and law is "good". But that's hardly useful to argument, your own best friend would probably argue with you for hours, or for life, about how these two concerns should be balanced. Welcome to the world of moral relativity.
"It's because there is a God."
---------A word that has a dictionary definition, but by referring to nothing empirically detectable, thus refers to nothing important, and is on the level of the Big Bang, dark energy, fairies and the Bermuda Triangle. you are never going to show that the atheist is "unreasonable" for doing what everybody does every second of every day, and prioritizing what their 5 senses detect, over things their 5 senses cannot detect. That's how you undo all the philosophical resistance to "empiricism" in less than a paragraph. Those who deny empiricism's truth are complete hypocrites, as they had to depend on their senses of sight and sound in order to formulate their stupid theory that the 5 senses are not as reliable as we'd wish. Sure is funny how reliable they are when one wishes to refute empiricism!
"Sometimes war is necessary."
------Then you just contradicted your first premise that it is moral not to harm someone. If war is an exception, then whether harming someone is morally good or bad is not subject to absolute determination, but depends on context. Once again, welcome to the world of relativity.
"It's because there is a God."
--------A word with a dictionary definition, but referring to nothing empirically demonstrable. When something is not empirically demonstrable, it is reasonable to kick it to the curb. Just ask any girl what she does when her boyfriend always says he loves her, but she notices that he never actually proves it. These days, she kicks his ass to the curb...unless she has a pyschologial problem and finds "comfort" in submitting to morally inconsistent men?
"If men get to defining the moral absolutes---we find in this article it's impossible. Because there will always be conflicting opinions. But, if given the context that morals are being discovered, and are discovered by multiple religions and sages, we understand that in fact morality is present, and it is very substantive proof of there being a truth that is beyond our observation."
--------If it was beyond your observation, you wouldn't know enough about it to say "morals are being discovered." But either way, all you are doing is crediting God with the fact that most human beings think rape and murder are wrong. But there is a perfectly good naturalistic explanation for the fact that this opinion-pattern exhibits itself in humanity: enhancing survival and thriving requires we observe such morals. But then we could ask whether survival and thriving is objectively good, and the first answer is "no, because there is no such thing as objective morals".
The second answer is "you have never demonstrated that any moral code exists outside the brain".
"That truth existing beyond our observation implies intrinsically that there is a God."
-------That's a violation of Occam's Razor, since yoru solution (god) is infinitely complex, when in fact a much less complex and much more likely explanation for morality is available: Certain actions must be done to enhance survival and thriving. If you want to have a nice life in the USA, you must avoid disobeying the popular morality in that country, which has been codified into criminal and civil laws.
Once again, you haven't demonstrated that any human moral code exists independently of human brains.
You also need to be careful. It's also true that most men desire to have sex with multiple females. Are you going to be consistent, and say that beacuse this is a popular moral, it must be from God?
"Because once you prove that there is truths beyond our observation"
----------Which is logically impossible....If you can't observe it, you are never going to prove it.
"you move into the realm of Metaphysics, and once you enter into that realm, the existence of God becomes manifest."
----------Atheist explanations for popular moral sentiment down through human history are sufficient. God? I have no need of that hypothesis.
"The question is, which God is the true God?"
--------nope, you havn't established god's existence yet. Try again. And tell Frank Turek he ain't doing so great trying to prove god from morality.
"And only one in history has ever shown Himself. That is Jesus Christ. Only one had ever taught a perfect moral law."
--------If you believe Jesus was God, then you believe Jesus created that perfect moral law. But even the bible says God's law was imperfect and needed replacing, See Hebrews 8:13. if the first covenant had been morally perfect, no place would have been sought for the Second.
God also admits he gives laws that are 'not good', Ezekiel 20:25.
And if Jesus is God, then it was Jesus who authored the moral law that says a preteen girl shoud be burned to death if she has pre-marital sex in her father's house. Leviticus 21:9.
Moses was far closer to God than you'll ever be, and yet assumed sex within adult-child marriages
was morally acceptable. Numbers 31:18. I've extensively researched that verse, and the conservative christians who carp that this is just saying the girls can be used as house-servants, are high on crack.
God also gave the law that allows the soldier who recently killed the female war-captive's parents, to marry her...a law that nowhere expresses or implies he needed her consent.
"That's Christ. It's why I believe. And when people ask me, "How do you know it's perfect?" I tell them to just read Matthew Chapters 5 - 8. Those chapters, if you can disagree with them, it proves you're not right morally speaking."
Try obeying Matthew 5:19, which praises those who obey even the least of the OT commands.
Try obeying Matthew 5:23-24, since the temple was destroyed in 70 a.d. and never rebuilt.
And read Luke 1:6 before you insist we cannot get right with God through the merit of our obedience to Law.
"The chapters demonstrate moral perfection, as the article would say, the 1 + 1 = 2 of morality. Of course, Morality is much more complicated than that. It's, as I've often said, like Quantum physics."
---------Right, several schools of thought which compete with and contradict each other. Once again, welcom to moral relativism.
"But Jesus' Sermon tells us the basic form of it that we can all agree on."
No, you don't agree that Matthew 5:23-24 applies today, and you certainly don't think the animal sacrifices that were part and parcel of the Temple, have any spiritual significance.
"That's why the rest of the Bible has to be taken on faith."
--------Which means you disagree with Normn Geisler, Mike Licona, Gary Habermas, Josh McDowell, Frank Turek and most other conservative Christian 'apologists' who think the divine inspiration of the bible can be "proved".
"If God on Earth could come to so perfect a moral law,"
-------You think burning preteen girls to death (Leviticus 21:9) is a perfect moral law? You think kidnapping little girls, killing their parents, then making the girls slave in your house for the rest of their lives (Numbers 31:18, your interpretation) is a perfect moral law? Most Christians would disagree with you.
"it proves to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the rest of the Bible must be true."
-------What bible? The Catholic one with the Apocrypha? The Ethiopian coptic?
Or were you just talking about the plain ol' American bible we've come to know and love, which can be found in motel rooms and placed there by the Gideons?
"Even when I'm questioning why that is, I have faith that the groundwork Jesus laid in those chapters is sufficient evidence enough for me to believe. Even when everything else might seem difficult or questionable."
-----------What you DON'T do is show that the atheist is "unreasonable".
