Enfield Poltergeist: challenge to Jason Engwer

UPDATE July 27, 2019

Since authentication of evidence is everything in investigation by outsiders, especially in this Enfield poltergeist case that Engwer himself admits involved fakery by the main players, I hereby request Jason Engwer to provide to me ALL of the audio, video, testimonial and documentary evidence he has obtained in the matter of the Enfield Poltergeist case.  Will Engwer comply?  Or will he argue that skeptics are being irrational by asking for the most authenticated forms of the relevant evidence?

Please contact me by email to barryjoneswhat@gmail.com, to discuss possible ways you can communicate this evidence to me.
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Over at Triablogue, Jason Engwer has reached a new low with his obsessive need to attack naturalism and prove that the supernatural exists.  His latest?  An endless amount of blogging to defend an alleged incident of poltergeist activity that happened between 1977 and 1979 in England, known as the Enfield Incident.

One wonders whether Engwer could put his sophistry skills to convincing use telling us that the Lutz family attorney was more than likely just kidding when confessing that the Amityville Horror was a hoax.  Anything to keep sinners interested in the supernatural, amen?  God surely approves of the honorable lie, doesn't he?

Anyway, this exposè will be updated regularly.  Here's the story:

In 1977, a poltergeist allegedly invaded a house in England occupied by a divorced mother and her two daughters.  Read the Wikipedia article for quick introduction.  Read the Rational Wiki article for a more cynically skeptical view.

For the next two years, this phenomena was investigated by various people.  Most came away skeptics, but a few kept this matter alive by their conclusions that the haunting was real.

Jason Engwer claims that he funded the digitization of the certain audio recordings of this incident made by Maurice Grosse.

First, a question:  Jason, how do you think the god of the Old Testament feels about you putting forth substantial amounts of Christian money and effort to prevent the destruction of things that allegedly testify to activities promoted by devils and spiritists?

 27 'Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.'" (Lev. 20:27 NAU)

 10 "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,
 11 or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.
 12 "For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD; and because of these detestable things the LORD your God will drive them out before you. (Deut. 18:10-12 NAU)

Second, I'm sure you will, like a cheap lawyer, trifle and pretend that because you do this in the effort to achieve the apologetics goal of proving the supernatural to be real, your bible-god thus approves of your expenditure of time and money this way. Sorry, that's not likely:  in Acts 19, despite the possibility that apostle Paul could have preserved the books on magical arts owned by recent converts, ostensibly so that he could expose truths about the devil, no, Paul's converts decided that permanently destroying such things was best:

 18 Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices.
 19 And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
 20 So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.   (Acts 19:18-20 NAU)

Third, if you are so damn sure that the standard apologetic fare you push through your website (i.e., the NT documents are historically reliable, atheism is logically fallacious, Jesus' resurrection is a secure fact of history,  etc, etc.) is seriously in accord with truth, and if you believe god blesses your efforts through such arguments, can you really say that the benefit of resurrecting what you think are the devil's works outweighs the risk that some of these recordings will motivate non-Christians to dive even more deeply into spiritualism and other forbidden areas?  Are standard Christian apologetic arguments not enough, that you have to resurrect gossip about the devil's activity in the world?

If you are doing just fine with your standard pop apologetics, can you really say that more is always better?  Can you really say that any evidence of the supernatural is always best displayed to the entire world?  Sorry, Jason, the bible does not express or imply that god will lift the ban on materials in support of idolatry/spiritism/satan merely because the Christian plans to use them for a godly purpose.  You don't believe yourself deficient in holy and godly arguments and evidence for Christianity, you don't think you are so lacking as to need the help of materials that have far greater potential to lure your non-Christian readers deeper into the occult. 

Or did you suddenly discover what a convenient blessing it can be to become a Calvinist and insist that everything you do, including even drawing people's attention to the tricks of the devil, was predestined by God and thus unavoidable?  I think its funny that you and Steve Hays have such violent disagreement on whether Calvinism is biblically justified.  Sort of warns the non-Christian reader that by becoming genuinely born again, we gain NO ability to correctly discern any biblical thing.

Fourth, I detect nothing in the New Testament that expresses or implies that God approves of methods of promoting Christianity that involve giving money to non-Christian organizations that specialize in preserving evidence of the devil's activity on earth (thus, satanic organizations).  Jesus and Paul did plenty of evangelism and apologetics.  Don't you think the bible's inerrant record of this model is sufficient for your faith and practice?  Apparently not.

Fourth, Jason, at any time in your communications with SPR, did you evangelize them or make any attempt to persuade them to repent and accept the gospel, yes or no?

Fifth,  I decided to do my own research into the Enfield Follies with as much of the first-hand evidence as possible.  So I sent the following request to SPR, the same organization Engwer paid to digitize the Grosse-tapes:

-----------beginquote

Hello,

I am interested in researching the so-called Enfield Poltergeist, the matter you advertise at

https://www.spr.ac.uk/news/enfield-haunting

A man named Jason Engwer is claiming to have funded the digitization of the Maurice Grosse's Enfield tapes.

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-enfield-poltergeist-tapes-made-more.html

I request the following materials in my attempt to investigate that phenomenon.  Please let me know which materials are not free, and what the cost would be, if any.

If any of the below-requested materials cannot be produced, please explain why.  For example, they are copyrighted, or the owner refuses to give permission to distribute, etc.

1. A full unedited copy of the contract and any other documents Mr. Engwer signed with you or with other organizations/persons/agents.  How much money has he paid you so far to digitize the Grosse-tapes?
2. A full unedited copy of all other communications you sent to or received from Mr. Engwer at any time, whether by letter, email, internet post, or otherwise.  I would like to know how extensive Mr. Engwer’s requests for evidence were.
3. Links to all the audio files concerning this incident that you have already made available to, or that you intend to make available to, Mr. Engwer.  I have found some websites that purport to host some downloadable versions of those tapes, but I would feel better if I could obtain those digital files from you directly.
4. Downloadable versions of any notes, diaries, investigative files or other written memoranda created between 1970 and 1987 by any investigator before, during and after they visited the house where the poltergeist allegedly was.
5. Any BBC broadcasts on radio and television you have, which mention the incident, or interview witnesses, etc.
6. All video and audio evidence that you believe is not available elsewhere.
7. All photographic and video files that anybody ever made of this phenomena at the house in question, between 1970 and 1987, including the photos allegedly depicting levitation, object movement or any other type of allegedly paranormal  activity.
8. All information and facts you have about the mother Peggy Hodgson,  the daughters Margaret and Janet, their father, and any family members, friends or neighbors.
9. Any reports filed by any police or welfare or social workers who may have made some type of inquiry or investigation into this incident at any time.
10. The most extensive biographical information you have about Maurice Grosse, John Burcombe, their investigations into any other incidents of alleged paranormal activity, and information on anybody else not already identified, supra,  who attempted any type of inquiry or investigation at any time into this incident.
11. I also seek your opinions on Jason Engwer's arguments that this was genuinely supernatural activity.  Does anybody at SPR suspect that the the Hodgson children were responsible, to any degree, for faking or attempting to fake any type of supernatural phenomena?  Does any of the evidence establish that anybody engaged in any type of deception or foul play between 1974 and 2005 concerning this incident?
12. All documents containing your answers or rebuttals to any skeptics who argue that this entire incident is just one giant hoax.
13. A listing and description of all the Grosse-tapes and any other audio recordings made between 1977 and 1980 relative to this incident, that is, the recordings that you decided not to digitize, the dates those tapes were originally recorded, and your reasons for not digitizing them.
14. References to any other persons, organizations, websites or companies that have audio, video, written, photographic or other source material you do not have about this incident.
15. The current mailing address, telephone number and any email addresses of Margaret and Janet Hodgson, or, if they wish not to be contacted, why they wish not to be contacted.

I'm sure you can appreciate why serious investigation requires that I obtain the evidence from sources as close as possible to the original authors.  Finding some of that stuff on unauthorized internet sites might make for interesting viewing, but can only hamper the investigation when the questions of authenticity inevitably arise.

Thank you for your help,

Barry Jones

-------------endquote

I sent that email today, August 13, 2018, so we'll have to wait and see how willing the SPR is for unbelievers to evaluate their claims using as much of the primary source material as possible.  I'm hoping they don't get commercial on me and insist that most of the requested evidence is proprietary and costs money.  

Maybe Jason will say I am unreasonable to bother these nice folk because I could get much of this off of the internet.  That's right Jason:  If its found on the internet, skeptics have no choice but to admit it's true.  What's next?  Gonna start tithing to Ron Wyatt's ministry?  Skeptics can't refute that picture of a chariot-wheel at the bottom of the Red Sea, so Wyatt has surely been used by God to smack down atheism and extol the inerrancy of the bible?

For now, Jason entitled one of his posts as The Enfield Poltergeist Tapes Made More Accessible

Jason, are you going to make those digitized audio files more accessible to the public?  Or is there a limit to how accessible you think these critically important tapes should be?

For now, yes, you guessed it, Mr. Engwer seriously believes that the iconic photo of a girl standing above her bed proves that she was levitated or at least "thrown" by paranomal powers:

What Burcombe witnessed, corroborated by Peggy, demonstrates that the poltergeist had an interest in levitating people in the manner reflected in the photographs.

Ready to see a picture that proves levitation can be done by ghosts?

















Maybe Jason can tell us how suspicious we should be that an alleged levitation that a regular camera caught, could not be caught on a video camera.  Until that day, assuming these pictures are accurate copies of the originals, this is nothing but girls jumping on beds.  It's also an otherwise smart apologist allowing his deluded religious zeal to cloud his brain.

Jason's god is apparently capable of creating the entire universe, parting the Red Sea, taking people up into heaven by whirlwind and chariots of fire, even causing the earth to stop turning just so Joshua has enough time to complete a battle....yet Jason's god apparently wants Jason to refute atheism by arguing that a picture of a girl above a bed is depicting levitation, not jumping, and hence the supernatural realm exists.  Does this send me running to repent in dust and ashes?



Hey Jason, how hard do you think it would be for a jailhouse lawyer to get some attention by arguing that the accidents that happened on the set of the original Exorcist movie cannot be explained on purely naturalistic grounds?  Yeah, go google that shit and discover the 67th book of the bible.

And while you are at it, assure skeptics that they have no hope of being able to debunk the fanciful miracle accounts in evangelist Mel Tari's 1971 best seller "Like A Mighty Wind".  The last I heard, those miracle stories were told by "eyewitnesses" and "corroborated", so atheists simply have no choice: god exists.

Updated regularly.

Update: July 27, 2019

Engwer got his shovel, apparently, and started digging into the bottom of the credibility barrel, once again.  He has posted a long rambling article doing what he does best, trifling about largely unknown events that he apparently gained knowledge of by listening to audio recordings made in 1977.  See here. 

I will respond point by point, not to the entire article, but to his own admissions that some of this stuff is baloney, since, as I will argue, such admission fully justifies broadbrushing the entire Enfield incident as a mixture of foul play and one paranormal researcher looking for fame and money.

First, there is the New Testament.  Nowhere does the text express or even imply that a follower of Christ should spend their time gossiping about paranormal events to the degree that Jason Engwer trifles about the details of this bullshit Enfield Poltergiest yarn.  Go ahead, read your NT, then ask yourself what Jesus wants the Christian teacher to focus on.  "Gossip about evil spirits as originally conveyed by a non-Christian person who had an interest in evil spirits" is not even close.

Second, the obvious:  the main players, to my knowledge, have never given their testimony under oath, in situation where they stood a risk of going to jail for lying.  So you'll excuse me if I don't give a shit about the girls being willing 40 years later to maintain their supernatural explanations while talking to tabloid tv reporters.

Third, I tried to gain the same tapes, videos and evidence from the same source Engwer allegedly got them, and after being told my request was being routed to others, received no more response.  That ought to tell you how interested the custodians are in allowing the evidence to be evaluated by disinterested parties.  They stand for paranormal activity.  They don't allow skeptics to see the most authenticated evidence, and Christians don't allow Mormons to interrupt Sunday services.

Fourth, to my knowledge Engwer has never provided any authentication for these "tapes".  I don't mean that he is lying about having such tapes.  Unless he thinks "authentication" a negligible issue, the lack of authentication automatically justifies wholesale skepticism (i.e., not suspension of judgment, but judgment that the incident was completely faked with no supernatural anything to it).

Fifth, Engwer tells the reader nothing about why historians and courts of law agree that second-hand testimony is generally considered inferior to first-hand.  Had he done so, he'd risk some of his readers asking "why don't you conduct a personal interview with the main players who are still alive?".  Then Engwer would have to disagree with historians and legal authorities and pretend that second-hand evidence, whose authenticity he has no personal knowledge of, is "just as good" as under-oath testimony from the main players.

Sixth, I would like Engwer to make available to me ALL of the audio recordings, video recordings, and any other documentary or testimonial evidence that he has obtained about the Enfield incident.  If he wants to be taken seriously when he pretends this crap was likely genuinely paranormal, he will not fear investigation into the matter by somebody who does not subscribe to the paranormal.  Any refusal of Engwer to fork over said evidence, shall be taken to mean that he is fearful that a purely naturalistic explanation of the evidence would be equally if not more reasonable than his own. 

I've only given a few examples of the sort of qualifiers that could be added to what I said earlier about Margaret and Janet's suspicious behavior. I wouldn't claim that these qualifiers satisfactorily explain everything. But I do think they satisfactorily explain some things.

Then we have a problem not different from that facing the jury after they heard the rape-victim admit she has lied repeatedly in the past about rape.  Does it prove the current rape didn't happen?  No. Would it intellectually justify the jurors who choose to find her lacking in credibility?  Yes.  In a rape case where the physical evidence only shows sex and it is only the woman's testimony that says "rape", you cannot blame the jurors who, upon hearing her confess to lying about rape in the past, to consider allowing a potentially guilty rapist go free to be a higher priority than jailing a potentially innocent man.

My overall assessment of the altered states of consciousness is that it's highly probable that at least much of what happened was paranormal, but that some of it is suspicious, sometimes even highly suspicious.

Then you cannot blame the atheist or skeptic who uses their intentional fakery to broadbrush all the evidence, call it bullshit, and forget about it.  The issue is not whether lawyers who specialize in sophistry can always raise trifles that skeptics cannot completely blow out of the ballpark.  The issue is whether insisting on the purely naturalistic basis for all the Enfield Poltergeist activity is "reasonable".  It is.  In Engwer's word, nobody is reasonable to be skeptical of a story until they have taken several years to do doctoral-level research into it and extracted reluctant confessions of foul play from all of the the main players.  Well fuck you, reasonableness in skepticism doesn't require such extreme analysis.  Otherwise, you are a dipshit to ever render a skeptical opinion about anything, since in all likelihood you didn't exhaustively investigate it beforehand.

A lot of what occurs during these episodes is trivial, immature, vulgar, nonsensical, and embarrassing.

And yet you expect us to believe the girls made free choices to fake some symptoms while sincerely believing the poltergeist was genuinely supernatural?  Where exactly do you think skeptics go wrong by using the "highly suspicious" and "nonsensical" acts of the girls to broadbrush the entire matter as fake?

I'd expect many people to dismiss the phenomena because they're so different than what's commonly expected from a poltergeist.

There are no reliable records of genuinely poltergeist activity in the first place, so the fact that the Enfield phenomenon involved elements no present in movies entitled "poltergeist" means exactly nothing.

But common expectations are often poorly informed.

A rather stupid statement given that because they are "common", they represent the collective wisdom of a lot of adults, and therefore usually aren't poorly informed, at least when it comes to ghosts.  non-Christian adults have lots of morally and intellectually justified "common expectations" (the dangers of joining cults, unprotected sex, drunk driving, college education gives you a boost in the job market, etc).

And the suspicious aspects of the phenomena have to be evaluated alongside the evidence we have for the paranormality of the events.

And the woman's testimony that she was raped needs to be evaluated alongside her confession that she has lied about rape in the past.

You can't focus on the former while ignoring the latter.

You don't cite to any rule of historiography or rule of evidence that prohibits smart people from using some evidence of foul play in the record to broadbrush the entire matter as fakery and delusion.  I really hope you don't become a judge...you'd have to first do doctoral level research into a litigant's credibility before you could issue a ruling during an evidentiary hearing.  Sorry, but in the real world, credibility determinations can be reasonable even if they don't answer every trifle a Pharisee could possibly raise.

I've made some comments in the past about why the poltergeist may have behaved as it did on occasions like these.

Jesus also said God was his Father.  Like it matters.

I've also discussed why people would sometimes fake incidents in a genuine paranormal case.

I have to wonder...should I look up that discussion?  Or should I obey 2nd Timothy 2:14?

I'll have more to say about both subjects in later posts.
But I want to conclude this post with some comments about the personal aspect of paranormal research. I opened the post by referring to how the tapes on these altered states of consciousness are the hardest ones to listen to. That's primarily because of the personal implications involved.
Tapes 22 through 24 in Grosse's collection have stood out in my mind in this context. They were recorded in the middle of November of 1977, on a night when the Hodgsons were staying at the Burcombes' house. Janet was in one of the bedrooms, Margaret and Billy were in another, and Peggy was in the third. Peggy was ill at the time, so much so that she couldn't take care of her children. (See the segment here in a November 1977 television program that alludes to the situation.) In his book, Playfair refers to how Peggy had "collapsed in total exhaustion" and had a "breakdown" around this time (81, 88), and it's sometimes said that she had a nervous breakdown at least once during the case. Both of the girls were going in and out of altered states of consciousness, often screaming, crying, groaning, and such, with Janet exhibiting unusual strength and being violent at times, as levitations and other paranormal events went on simultaneously.

Sorry, you don't have any convincing evidence of levitations.  Yet you droll on and on, constantly peppering your evaluation with references to how paranormal acts were actually taking place. 

Grosse was frequently moving back and forth among the rooms, trying to keep up with everything that was going on, moving his tape recorder from one location to another, and directing the other people involved.

Sure is funny he never got video of the poltergiest moving or levitating objects.  The fact that the older evaluations seriously set forth a series of pictures showing a girl jumping on her bed as her being thrown around by a poltergeist, justifies full skepticism alone. The very fact that you have to admit fakery and then trifle that the fakery doesn't necessary mean there was no poltergeist, cooks your goose.

He got some help from the Burcombes, and Mrs. Edwards, who I referred to earlier, was there. But it had to be a miserable experience for Grosse.

Not if he was making money or seeking to make money/gain notoriety.

As he tells Edwards on that night, "it's a dreadful thing to watch". I don't know how anybody could listen to these tapes without having a lot of respect for Grosse and appreciation for the difficulty of the work he was doing.

Easy, Grosse was seeking to turn this spectacle into money and notoriety, which seems likely given that he was exactly an "paranormal investigator", or so all internet sources agree.

But you sympathize with the Hodgsons more than anybody else. In some ways, what Janet went through was worse than what anybody else experienced. For the most part, her trance states (as distinct from her dreams) come across as highly convincing and agonizing experiences.

Kids are sometimes very good at deceit.

But it's hard to tell just how much she was aware of at the time, and she didn't seem to remember much about the experiences afterward.

Or she remembered it all full well, but realized that by saying she was suffering amnesia, should be drastically lessen the likelihood of saying something that might contradict her earlier testimony.

By contrast, Peggy had to watch what her children were going through without being able to do much about it, and she remembered it. During one of the episodes, she commented that "It cuts you in pieces inside." (GP20B, 13:35)

Yes, some people can be gullible.

There are a lot of reasons why the neglect of paranormal research is so appalling.

But you are a "Christian".  The bible never expresses or implies that any "Christian" spend the same amount of time trifling about particular instances of alleged evil-spirit activity that you spend.  Among all truthful statements the world has ever produced, the statement "the people at Triablogue intentionally misinterpret 2nd Timothy 2:14 so they can feel better about their ceaseless sins of word-wrangling" ranks near the top.

We should think about the effects that neglect has on the people who go through these experiences.

Or you can think about preaching the wurdagawd.  Read your NT, then you tell me which one Jesus would more than likely wish for you to engage in.

We should also consider the implications for a culture when people don't care or think much about these issues.

I do.  I consider how much more advanced society would be if nobody believed in ghosts.

We should also consider what it means when an allegedly "bible-believing" Christian like Engwer devotes substantial amounts of Jesus' time and money to helping resurrect gossip about what Engwer himself admits is the activity of demons.  Had Engwer read Genesis 3, he might have figured out that focusing on the devil and what he has to say can do nothing but lead to ruin.

It is my suspicion that Engwer's motive has nothing to do with Christianity, he simply loves to create opportunities for him to 'wrangle words' with other people, which would be a violation of 2nd Timothy 2:14.

Atheist rebuttal to Crossexamined.org on Objective Morality

This is my reply to an article by Cole James entitled

Objections to Objective Morality

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

I took a philosophy class while I was in college. The topic of this class was on contemporary moral issues, so you know we got into some heated topics. I heard every objection under the sun to objective morality.

No you didn't.  You didn't hear my objections.  You likely also didn't hear the professor ask you whether your refusal to support burning teenage prostitutes alive arises from the moral relativity of the culture you were born and raised in, or if it arises from morals put into your heart by the same God who ordered this atrocity in Leviticus 21:9.  

Everything from it was not very “tolerant,” to different cultures act differently so therefore there cannot be objective morality. I was the minority in this class to say the least!

 I think a moral relativist is stupid if they are pushing "toleration" as strongly as you imply.  There are purely naturalistic justifications for refusing to be tolerant of the practices of other cultures.  I have a naturalistic desire to see my children live and grow into adulthood, this doesn't need to imply any more spirituality than is implied from the fact that lower life forms also desire to see their young survive...lest you end up taking the position that the only reason the insects care about their offspring is because they were made in the image of god?

Objections Objective Morality

Objective morality means that moral statements like “murder is bad” is independent of the person saying it.

So go ahead, prove that "murder is bad" is objectively true, and prove it independently of the person saying it.  That is, prove it without relying on anything else that person says. 

Objective morality means that there is a standard of morality that transcends human opinions and judgements.

Would that be the morality of the god who ordered teenage prostitutes to be burned to death in Leviticus 21:9?  Would it be the morality of the god who "stirs up" the Medes to rape Babylonian women in Isaiah 13:13-17 (i.e., the horrific morality of the OT god is not limited to the Hebrews, God also applies it to Gentile nations)?

Morals are not invented, they are discovered.

That's right.  Little johnny thinks nothing of hurting his baby brother in a toy-war, and doesn't "discover" it is "wrong" until mommy or daddy impose their morals on his impressionable barbaric brain.

Now that our society has seemingly transformed into a “post-truth” society, objective morals have come under attack. A “post-truth” society is a society which is not concerned with objective facts, but rather, right and wrong are based on personal subjective feelings, tastes, and personal belief.

Then Christian apologists take part in such post-truth society.  God clearly approves of men raping women, today's apologists don't.  Everybody changes with the times.

As Christians, one of the best arguments we have for God is the moral argument.

Then it sure is funny that the bible nowhere indicates approval of using such argument to prove god.  Methinks you are so lacking in the Holy Spirit, you care more about all the bells and whistles you can invent to help God do apologetics, than you care about the truthfulness of your own witness in the "power of the Holy Spirit".  The biblical standard of truth takes a direct hit from it's own defenders.

Of all the attacks on Christianity and God, a Christian will most likely hear the most attacks on this subject. Why? Because everyone can relate to this topic. Each one of us every day makes moral judgements and decisions every day, ranging from opening the door for someone to helping someone who just got in a car wreck.

Since you claim such matters involve morals, go ahead: demonstrate that the Christian who refuses to open a door for someone, or the Christian who refuses to help somebody who just got into a car wreck, is objectively immoral for such omission.  Or you can save yourself a lot of headaches by admitting that many moral situations aren't governed by an absolute moral standard.

Just so we can have a basis for what the argument actually is, it goes as follows:

Premise 1: If objective moral values and duties exist then God exists

Premise 2: Objective morals values and duties do exist

Conclusion: Therefore, God exits

 Ok, so since the dictionary defines "objective" as "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.true for reasons independent of human opinion", you should be able to demonstrate any particular objective moral truth you wish, and do so without needing to hear any human being state their feelings or opinions on the subject.

You think rape is "objectively" immoral?  Go ahead, prove it without considering what any human being thinks or feels about it.   Just like you can prove the objective existence of trees without needing to depend on what other human beings think or feel about trees.

With the argument in mind, consider four objections:

    There are so many different cultures with different values, there can’t be objective morals! Look how different we are!

Off the bat, I agree with this objection. There are many different cultures appearing to be morally different on the surface. However, as one reads between the lines it becomes apparent that these different cultures are not really that different.

 Then because you morally approve of male genital mutilation (circumcision), explain the basis upon which you think female genital mutilation (clitordectomy) is "objectively" immoral.   Wouldn't subjecting female children to a procedure that inhibits the libido they will have as adults, prevent a certain amount of lust/sexual sin?  How can preventing sin be objectively bad?

It is important as we read between the lines to keep in mind that when looking at cultural diversity we need to determine whether differences are really about core morals or instead about application of that core moral truth. For example, what constitutes murder?

That doesn't matter to you, your problems are bigger than that.  The bible makes God's participation in all murders mandatory and unavoidable with the following texts:

 39 'See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. (Deut. 32:39 NAU)

 5 "Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; And his limits You have set so that he cannot pass. (Job 14:5 NAU)

Suppose a man murders the cashier at a gas station.  Did God set a limit to the number of days this cashier was to live?  If so, how can god "set" that number of days, without himself being intimately involved in the immediate cause of their death (i.e., murder)?

How can you call murder objectively immoral, when God himself has equally as much involvement in murders as do the humans pulling the trigger?

What my classmates did not realize is that these difference were in how morals were applied, not a difference in morals. Peter Kreeft says this,

“No culture has ever existed which believed and taught what Nietzsche called for: a transvaluation of all values. There have been differences in emphasis, for instance, our ancestors valued courage more than we do, while we value compassion more than they did. But there has never been anything like the relativism of opinions about values that the relativist teaches as factual history. Just imagine what that would be like. Try to imagine a society where justice, honesty, courage, wisdom, hope, and self-control were deemed morally evil. And unrestricted selfishness, cowardice, lying, betrayal, addiction, and despair were deemed morally good. Such a society is never found on Earth. If it exists anywhere, it is only in Hell and its colonies. Only Satan and his worshippers say ‘evil be thou my good.’”

Kreeft and you are wasting time pretending that the absurd extremes some moral relativists take, constitutes the best which the moral relativism camp has to say.  Relativity of morals does not mandate that nobody give a fuck about anything except themselves.

Turek is an idiot to insist that all human beings become sociopaths when and if God's existence be denied.  If several sociopaths share a common goal and can see that they can attain it more efficiently by working together and making certain sacrifices for each other, they will.  The phenomena of one life-form cooperating with another to achieve a common goal has nothing about it mandating that God exist or that morals are objective.

It really comes down to a case-by-case basis. For instance, in the Hindu religion, they believe in reincarnation. Some of these people will starve themselves because they will not eat a cow. Why? Because they believe their great uncle died and reincarnated into a cow. Looking on the surface at this, it may look like there are differences in morals, but we need to read between the lines. As we read between the lines we see that the morals of our culture and their culture are the same. They think it is wrong to eat the cow because they believe that is their great uncle, we also believe it is wrong to eat our great uncle. As we can see, this really is not an objection, it is just a matter of not digging deeper.

Then how do you explain your differences with cultures that embrace endocannibalism?  How much reading between the lines must we accomplish before we find out that we and they agree about morality?

How do you explain our disagreement with cultures that eat their enemies?  If we read between the lines long enough, will we discover that we and they agree on the morality of it?

If we can avoid the stigma of what they do, by pretending its significance is limited to the reason why they do it, then why would you object to cannibalism?  That's just their way of dominating their enemy, and even modern American Christians generally support a military that obviously finds it morally good to dominate our enemies.

    Objective morality is not very tolerant! Relativism is much more tolerant of people’s opinions and beliefs.

This objection is entirely problematic. First, it is a self-refuting statement! By someone telling a person that his/her beliefs are not very tolerant, they in turn are being intolerant of the other person’s views. Moreover, this objection assumes that tolerance is really objectively good.

A second answer to this objection is, if relativism were true, why not be intolerant? Why should I be tolerant?

The new age fools who advocate absolute tolerance are indeed stupid, because there's at least one thing they don't tolerate; intolerance itself.  But too much tolerance would go against what the majority of Americans believe in, that is, that our society should be intolerant of certain practices.  This moral is itself relative, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  Bunches of people with shared moral values have been grouping together for centuries, nothing about this requires implying "god".

Do you see where I am going with this?

Relativism is the view that morality is culturally based, therefore being subject to a person’s individual choice. With this view, there is no objective standard that a relativist can point to, to say that someone should be tolerant.

At root, this is merely an emotional objection. The person who puts out this objection probably does not want objective morality to be true because it will change their lifestyle. So called, “tolerance” feels better to them, and indeed it is a good quality (Paul thought so), but again, just because it feels good does not mean I ought to be that way.

I don't object to objective morality that way, so, those concerns are dismissed.

    There are so many different understanding of morals, there cannot be objective morality.

Just because there is widespread disagreement about a particular moral issue, does not mean that truth does not exist.

But the widespread disagreement makes it reasonable to presume that there is no moral "truth" about it, it is nothing but human opinion.  Just because you've never seen the tooth-fairy doesn't mean she doesn't exist, but what fool would rest their skeptical case on this trifling technicality?

Think of it this way, just because eight students have different answers to a math problem does not mean that a right answer does not exist.

 Fallacy of false analogy, answers to math problems are governed by mathematical principles that are universally recognized.  Answers to moral problems are usually controversial because the underlying principles are the subject of widespread disagreement.

Otherwise, you invite the criticism that you can resolve moral disagreements among Christians with the kind of finality with which mathematical problems are resolved.  Wanna go there?  If not, then drop the math-analogy, Einstein.

Philosopher Dave DeSonier says it best,

“Finally, even if one believes that morals (not just facts or practices) do actually differ between cultures, it does not logically follow that there must be no absolute, objective moral standards that transcend cultures.

It doesn't have to logically follow.  It is reasonable, even if not logically necessary, to assume moral disagreements between cultures imply that morality is ultimately relative.  Your above examples were carefully selected; apparently, you were aware of the harm to your case if you had cited suicide bombing or gang violence or torture of prisoners or what crimes deserve the death penalty, since different cultures  disagree with each other about those matters too, yet no amount of reading between the lines is going to indicate other cultures agree with America on basic morals.

Just because five independent observers of an automobile accident give very different accounts of the event, it would be false to conclude that there is not an accurate, objective, and true description of what actually occurred.”

Fallacy of false analogy:  the reasons why Christians find Leviticus 21:9 objectively immoral have nothing in common with the situation of witnesses to an automobile accident.  All DeSonier is doing at this point is blindly assume that moral truths are just like empirical truths.

Even the skeptic David Hume understood this much. He points out,

“the fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes ethical objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity.”

Same answer:  Hume's popularity with skeptics doesn't mean every view he held is considered gospel by skeptics.  My reasons for rejecting ethical objectivism continue to bulldoze your idealistic pipe dreams, whether you can find other atheists who disagree with me or not.  You need to worry more about the specific arguments and less about finding enemies who agree with some of what you believe.  I can find Christians who think god will never send anybody to hell, but why should you give a shit about that?  Then I don't give a shit about you finding atheists who espouse ethical objectivism.

I am very happy to disagree with atheist Dan Barker's arguments for moral objectivity.  Our recoiling from pain obviously doesn't prove anything, otherwise, we should avoid every situation that produces pain, such as visits to the doctor/dentist, and we should never attempt to reset a dislocated shoulder for someone if doing so would case them pain.   The home intruder recoils in pain when we shoot him dead, but what fool would argue that such recoil from pain made it immoral to shoot him?  If some pain can be reasonably said to achieve a higher subjective moral good, Barker's arguments for objective morality fail.

So we can see, that even though common objective morals might sometimes be hard to find or discover, it does not logically follow that therefore, there are no common objective moral values and duties.

Great.  When you plan to actually do what you are required to do, and fulfill your burden to cite an objective moral and the reasons why you think it is mandatory upon all human beings at all times, let me know.  But I'm an asshole, I won't be distracted by your technical trifles about how lack of evidence doesn't mean the tooth-fairy doesn't live on Pluto. If you claim x, you have the burden to prove x. We have no obligation to view you as God, view your opinions as gospel, and then worry about how to prove you wrong.  Get to work.

    I do not believe in God and I am a moral person. So you are saying that atheists cannot be moral people?

You must be a sorry apologist if the only way you can attack ethical relativism is by pretending these stupid amateur skeptical excuses represent the most powerful guns relativists can bring to the fight.  You couldn't prove the objective immorality of torturing babies, to save your life.  All you could do is insist such torture is objectively immoral, and then insist, equally blindly,  that anybody who disagrees with you is therefore too mentally unstable to be worthy of reasoning with.  But that's hardly "argument". Go ask Matthew Flannagan.  Every time I asked him what moral standard he is using to justify his belief that some human act is objectively immoral, he either disappeared, or his website conveniently decided, right at that point, to ban me for suspected but non-existent spam.  He denied in private email that he caused this, but he also didn't indicate he'd be trying to rectify this, and, shock, surprise, I still cannot post on his blog.  His apathy toward my inability to post at his website sure is convenient toward achieving the goal of ducking the bullet.

When you are faced with an adversary you cannot refute, just stop communicating.  It works for Matthew Flannagan, so it will also work for you and anybody else who prioritize the need to sell books above the need to be accurate.

This is NOT at all what objective morality means! Of course, an atheist can be a good moral person.

Then you apparently have never read your bible, which says nobody is good:

 18 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. (Mk. 10:18 NAU)

  12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE." (Rom. 3:12 NAU)

What’s ironic is that I know some atheists who are actually more moral than many Christians!

That's not ironic, a person's morality arises from a combination of their genetic predispositions and their environmental conditioning.  And since god doesn't exist, seeing no moral improvement in the lives of those who claim to have "accepted Jesus" is nothing new.  All they did was join a club and sign the local creed, which had about as much spirituality to it as joining the cub scouts does.  

A person does not have to believe in God to be a good person. This is more of an objection of epistemology, or how we know something. The atheist can know morality, but they cannot justify or provide logical grounds for it.

 Sure we can.  I require my son to take out the garbage because

a.  the garbage needs to be taken out, because I personally don't like a dirty smelly house;
b. his obeying me keeps chaos out of the house, and keeping chaos at bay is required if we are to live happily with each other;.
c. his obeying me instills in him an appreciation that obeying an employer leads to the productive job-retention we all need in order to pay rent/mortgage and keep a stable place to live.

Why would you think a reasonable atheist needs anything more than this to justify saying it is morally good to ask their child to take out the garbage and for the child to obey?

From the Christian worldview, we believe God fabricated a moral code into our DNA (Romans 2:15), other people think we know morality because of evolution. Again, this is a question of how we know something, not why I ought to do something.

 Again, that's technically true, but if morality does come from evolution, then that leaves you in the lurch, with nobody having any reason to link morality to anything higher, like god.

This objection confuses ontology (is there a moral reality) with epistemology (how do we know morality). On the naturalistic atheist worldview, they cannot justify why someone ought to be moral.

And moral relativism is a good explanation for why Christians often fail to convince other Christians on moral issues like age of consent, death penalty, military service, assisted suicide, abortion etc, even if relativism isn't the only possible explanation.

There is no objective standard for the naturalistic atheist to point to.

There's no objective standard for the Christian to point to either.  Your moral disagreement with Leviticus 21:9 proves the point, as does your inability to convince other Christians that their specific morals are wrong.

This objection is just a common misunderstanding of the argument. A simple clarification of what you mean by the moral argument will handle this objection.

As I mentioned earlier, in our “post-truth” society it is inevitable that a Christian will run into one of these objections.

But if I have any say in it, Christians will routinely run into MY objections, and they will need to up their game, or concede defeat, the way Matthew Flannagan did with his dishonestly preventing me from posting further at his blogs after I asked the question moral objectivists cannot answer.

As Christians, we have to be prepared to answer these objections and to show that belief in God is rational and reasoned (1 Peter 3:15).

 You are also commanded to avoid wrangling words (2nd Timothy 2:14) and it wouldn't be very difficult to show how the ceaseless back and forth bantering required when Christian moral objectivists debate atheist moral relativists, is a fine illustration of said prohibited "wrangling".  See how I hammered the ever-mouthy female Christian apologist Lydia McGrew with that verse here.

What I have seen in dealing with the students in my class who opposed objective morality is that it is more of an emotional problem.

 Then you need to get out of class more often.  I've steamrolled moral objectivity several times at this blog, and none of my objections are as simpleminded as the stupefied drunks you prop up here.

As I mentioned in objection three, the students in my class did not want objective morality to exist because it would have to demand a change in their way if living.

Maybe so, but your argument sucks because all you are doing is refuting two-year olds.  When you learn enough of this topic to play with the big boys, let me know.

Hopefully, after reading this, you will be prepared to give a defense of one of the most relatable and fundamental arguments for the existence of God.

Sure...if your Christian readers anticipate that their only opponents will be atheists who have a very superficial understanding of these issues.  But you only do your students much harm if you are trying to prepare them to ward off my own attacks.  You gave them precisely nothing to take on me.

 I now reply to some of the replies that article generated:

    Andy Ryan says:

    July 21, 2017 at 3:14 am

    “Premise 1: If objective moral values and duties exist then God exists”

    That’s a non sequitur. What’s the connection between objective morality existing and Gid existing?

    Second, never mind swatting objections, where’s your evidence that OM actually exists?

    “Therefore, God exits”

    That’s a funny typo!

Good call!  I already steamrolled Christian apologist Matthew Flannagan by getting down to business and asking him what standard he uses to justify saying parents have an objective moral duty to avoid harming children.  Suddenly, I wasn't able to post there anymore, and Flannagan didn't reply to that question either
 While he denied via private email he had banned me by choice, he also refused to carry on the conversation through my blog or private email.  Let's just say Flannagan is nowhere near the moral objectivity warrior he thinks he is.  He is also the new father of conveniently timed accidents

        Butch says:

        July 28, 2017 at 10:13 am

        The connection is simple and it’s a shame you’re blinded to not see it. Without God it’s just your opinion.

 So what?  How does re-characterizing the morals of most Americans as "just opinion" operate to show any deficiency?  Yes, morals are absolutely nothing but opinions.  So what?

        As for your other question; Why is it only relatively wrong to torture babies for fun?

Because the only highest demonstrable authority for calling it immoral is human opinion.

And you have no business asking that question anyway, since your God could have killed King David's baby quickly, but instead decided to torture the child with a great sickness for 7 days before finally killing it.  If your god tortures children, then you cannot cite child-torture as a case of objective immorality:

 10 'Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'
 11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
 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.
 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. 12:10-18 NAU)

 Now what?  Did you suddenly become an open-theist?

I think any honest person knows it’s objectively wrong. Not relatively wrong.

 In other words, the only people your argument could convince, are people who already accept it.  That's the sign of a horrifically weak argument.

        If you hold it’s only relatively wrong then you have a serious problem that needs checked out!

So apparently god has a problem that needs checked out, since baby torture, being objectively immoral, doesn't allow for any exceptions?

And can’t say anything is wrong. Including raping your daughter and torturing her.

 Do you think the rapist continued to have sex with his victim after he was forced to marry her in accord with God's will?

 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,
 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days. (Deut. 22:28-29 NAU)

Deuteronomy 22 is talking about the man who seizes the non-engaged girl (Hebrew: taphas, the same word used in Deut. 21:19 to describe forceful arrest of a resisting criminal). 

The rape-interpretation of the “seize and lay with her” of Deut. 22:28 is confirmed by the “he violated her” in v. 29.  The Hebrew word for violated is עָנָה/anah, which means to be bowed down, afflicted.  Every other time this word is used to describe two people interacting, it is always describing a man forcing a woman to have sex against her will (i.e., rape):

It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled (Hebrew: anah)  her. (Deut. 21:14 NAU, see chapter ? for detailed exegesis of this passage)

But the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house at night because of me. They intended to kill me; instead, they ravished (Hebrew: anah) my concubine so that she died. (Jdg 20:5 NAS)

 However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated (Hebrew: anah) her and lay with her. (2Sa 13:14 NAS)

Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother, responded, "Do not let my lord suppose they have put to death all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead; because by the intent of Absalom this has been determined since the day that he violated (Hebrew: anah) his sister Tamar. (2 Sam. 13:32 NAU)

They ravished (Hebrew: anah )the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah. (Lam 5:11 NAS)

You can’t claim anything is evil. Including the God you seem to not believe in.

We can claim something is evil if it is reasonable to use our subjective standard of good and bad.  I claim rape is evil, because it interferes with her rights as they exist in this country.  I don't need to prove that America's hatred of rape reflects a transcendent morality in order to be reasonable to say rape is evil.

You are merely fallaciously assuming that nothing but an absolute standard of right and wrong will suffice.  You couldn't be more wrong.  You could never host a garage sale.  After all, there's no absolute guide to how much a used dvd player is worth, so that puts you in Shitsville for the rest of your life.

                Terry Lewis says:

                August 16, 2017 at 10:46 am

                Hey Andy!

                Thinking someone blinded is not an insult; it’s an assessment of their abilities. Or do you think there’s something insulting about being blind?

                “That torture causes suffering is a fact that is outside myself.”

                True enough… but this is not a moral statement. It says nothing about whether such suffering should or should not be inflicted on another person. What say you about that?

I think baby-torture is immoral because it takes away from babies everything that my genetic predospositions and cultural conditioning say babies should be allowed to enjoy.  I think this is the part where you say it is objectively unreasonable to go along with one's culture.            

    KR says:

    July 21, 2017 at 6:58 am

    Premise 2 is of course equally problematic. If there are objective moral values, they should be demonstrable facts – yet I’ve never seen such a demonstration. The question I keep asking but never get an answer to is: when people disagree on a moral issue, how do we determine who’s objectively correct?

 By asking what Frank Turek's interpretation of the bible is, of course. If you point out that other evangelicals disagree with his morals or theology, then you probably aren't one of the elect and can be conveniently ignored.

Cold Case Christianity: God causes all natural disasters

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

Cold Case Christianity: Where Is God During Natural Disasters?

Posted: 06 Aug 2018 01:08 AM PDT

Hurricanes every hurricane season. Massive earthquakes in Mexico and elsewhere. Volcanoes in several locations around the globe. Record-setting fires across the country. How could an all-loving, all-powerful God allow natural disasters such as these to destroy the lives of His children?

Easy, today's Christians are a bunch of pussies who have completely lost touch with the fact that their biblical god's idea of "love" is a radical departure from the sense they get after proof-texting John 3:16 ten thousand times. The solution is easy:  the god who allows disaster, doesn't "love" disaster victims in the way that the average American person understands "love".  That's precisely why there's such a big uproar in Christianity about why God allows evil.  Once you stop saying God is infinitely loving, the problem of evil disappears.  Consider that John 3:16 might actually be wrong.

John Stonestreet, my colleague at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, recently addressed this important question in a BreakPoint Radio broadcast. While it’s difficult for finite humans to understand the infinite mind and purposes of God, there are a few important truths to consider as we ponder these natural disasters:

Genesis 6:6-7 and other passages objectively justify the open-theist Christian to say that the god of the bible is imperfect, and therefore, all talk about his ways are higher than our ways, only does more to hide the truth than reveal it.  Excuses such as God's infinite purposes cement a person more comfortably in doctrines they already believe, but at the cost of denying the true meaning of other bible passages like Genesis 6:6-7.  It's not an anthropomorphism.  God really is an emotional asshole nearly indistinguishable from the idealistic fantasy created in the minds of pre-scientific tribal mercenaries.

Some ‘Natural Evil’ May Be a Necessary Means

Which indicates you have not the least bit of concern to sound convincing to anybody except those who are already committed to god's allegedly perfect ways.  You think "may be" constitutes "argument"?  No, it constitutes the warm friendly advice you get from a fundamentalist Christian roommate. Let me know when you intend to actually start threatening the arguments of atheists and bible-critics.

God may allow and tolerate some of these events to occur because it is the necessary consequence of a free natural process that allows creatures (such as humans) to make free choices. Scientist-theologian John Polkinghorne suggests that God has created a universe governed by natural laws such that life on earth is possible and humans can experience free will.

 And there you go again, blindly presuming "freewill" is true when a) 5-point Calvinist Christians know their bibles just as well as you, if not better, and they think your idea of freeewill is unbiblical, and b) the only reason "free" appears in "freewill" for most people is because they think the will is free of any and all constraints whatsoever...because they know that if there are any constraints, then to the degree such freewill is constrained, the person is not responsible for their actions.  Since the bible simplemindedly insists everybody is responsible for their actions, most Christians necessarily worship the "free" in "freewill" and, like you, bandy about it as if the matter were a foregone conclusion.

For example, the same weather systems that create deadly tornadoes also create thunderstorms that provide our environment with the water needed for human existence.

Probably because your god thought it too much effort on his part to just use miracles to cause the earth to grow food whenever he wanted it to.  Your excuse is especially attractive to certain internet apologists who lack the Holy Spirit the way people in hell lack water.  Their god consists of nothing beyond their own personal enjoyment of debating biblical matters.

The same plate tectonics that kill humans (in earthquakes) are necessary for the regulation of soils and surface temperatures needed for human existence.

You are forgetting one small matter:  God directly kills every person that dies, Deuteronomy 32:39.  You cannot use the naturalistic mechanisms of earth to shield God from responsibility for death.  Otherwise, that would be like saying the gun that protects the family is the same one that murders them.  Well if Dad was the only person in charge of the gun and was the only person using it...then how does observing the gun can be used for both good and evil, do jack shit to get Dad off the hook for murder?

Some ‘Natural Evil’ May Be a Necessary Consequence

God may also allow and tolerate some natural evil because it is the necessary consequence of human free agency. Humans often rebuild along earthquake fault lines and known hurricane pathways, and they frequently cut corners on building guidelines to save money. Much of this activity results in the catastrophic loss that we see in times of “natural” disaster. There are times when “natural” evil is either caused or aggravated by free human choices.

That's a good answer, but even then, you'd still have to blame the stupid human choices on God:

"The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps." (Prov. 16:9 NAU)

One could also answer that if you wouldn't allow your child to dig deep holes at the beach despite their unpleasant experience at being involuntarily buried alive the last time they went to the beach, then God has a responsibility to keep watch over his intentionally disobedient kids, the ways parents have over their own kids. And if God's ways are infinitely beyond human abilities to grasp, then comparing God/adults to parents/toddlers really is appropriate. God could do a much better job at convincing adults why their sins and errors are far more significant and evil than they perceive, but he just sits on his ass, pretending "you are without excuse" becomes true after his followers repeat it about 50 million times.

Some ‘Natural Evil’ May Be a Necessary Encouragement

God may allow some natural evil because it challenges people to think about God for the first time. For many people, the first prayers or thoughts of God came as the result of some tragedy. When our present, temporal lives are in jeopardy or in question, we often find ourselves thinking about the possibility of a future, eternal life. If Christianity is true, and we are more than temporal creatures, God may use the temporary suffering of this life to focus our thoughts and desires on eternity, where God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain . . .” because “the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

 God doesn't have to do things  in such a sadistic bloody way.  In the past he has gotten even unbelievers to do what he wanted through his magically coercive telepathic control over their minds (Ezra 1:1, Daniel 4:33). If he wants mother Betty to draw closer to him, he can wave his magic wand over her mind, he doesn't have to allow her three year old Johnny get eaten alive by a bear, just so that she goes crazy from the horror and joins a small pentecostal church where screaming is mistaken for God's inspiration.

Some ‘Natural Evil’ May Be a Necessary Motivation

God may permit some natural evil because it provides humans with the motivation and opportunity to develop godly character. A world such as this requires human beings to cooperate and peacefully co-exist in order to successfully respond to its challenges. The best in humanity often emerges as people respond in love and compassion to natural disasters. It’s in the context of these disasters that moral character has the opportunity to form and develop. Good character (acts of love, compassion and cooperation) must be freely chosen. God has provided us with a world that provokes us to improve our situation, care for those who are in need, and become better human beings in the process.

Same answer

But there’s an even more important truth to be considered as we ask where God is in such situations (as I recently wrote in a Christian Post article):

All Natural ‘Evil’ Necessitates the Existence of God

The painful consequence of a deadly storm is objectively evil.

Only for those who think human life has inherent worth.  Count me out.  Inherent worth is a contradiction in terms. 

It’s not a matter of personal or cultural opinion, and it’s more than a convenient description. The existence of natural “evil” requires us to consider the existence of an overarching, transcendent standard of “good” by which we judge something to be “bad.”

No, we view a flood as "evil" for sweeping away our house, because we were born and raised to believe that life should be lived in a house in a stable fashion.  That desire is perfectly sufficient to justify why it is that the average person finds the destructive force of natural disasters "evil".

And don't forget that many non-Christian adults don't view natural disasters as evil, even if human death is involved.  It is terrible for a child to be killed by an old tree that falls down solely from age and gravity, but it doesn't make sense to call that "evil".  Trees don't do what they do because of morality.  it is only the complaining human beings who are infusing that disaster with a moral issue.

C. S. Lewis, the British novelist and Christian apologist, described in his book “Mere Christianity” how he posited evil as an argument against God until he realized that true evil required a true, objective standard of good:

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

If natural evil is simply a matter of personal or cultural opinion, we could eliminate it from the face of the earth by simply changing our minds. But changing your opinion about Harvey, Irma, or Maria won’t make them any less “evil.”

 You weren't talking about changing minds about people, you were talking about us changing our minds about why natural disasters happen. Stay on track next time.

When Lewis realized the connection between true evil and the necessity of a true standard of good, he began to turn a corner in his thinking:

“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.”

Contrary to Lewis, we often really only mean a standard of justice that is personal, when we call something unjust.  Or, as with many people, we falsely believe that the standards we were born and raised with, are objective.  They aren't.

Natural disasters like storms, earthquakes and fires, are objectively evil,

Wrong.  Plenty of storms, earthquakes and fires occur without destroying human life.  Fuck you.

but that requires an objective standard of good by which we can make such a judgment in the first place. God offers this objective, transcendent source of righteousness. Without him, all notions of evil are simply. . . notions.

 Your answer is dismissed because there is no such thing as objective evil.  If emotions legitimately counted in arguments about evil and morality, then because Christians can be found emotionally arguing on both sides of a moral fence, both of them must be correct.  So don't dig yourself an early intellectual grave by pretending that emotions have a legitimate place in arguments about "objective" morality and evil. But if you leave emotions aside, then suddenly, you have no more proof that any human act is 'objectively' evil.  Except perhaps the tire old saw of selectively quoting the parts of the bible you think apply to 21st century people, an impossible thing to prove.

So, as we consider the devastation we have faced in the past few weeks and months, let’s remember that none of these events preclude the existence of God.

But if they prove the existence of God, they also prove that God views humanity similarly to the way we view lower life forms in laboratories; we are test-subjects, we are pawns moved about by higher spiritual beings who pass the time playing highly unnecessary war-games with each other.  See Job chapters 1 and 2.  Fuck you.  Tell your god to get a tv and a subscription to NetFlix, maybe he'll find something more constructive to do with his time than causing natural disasters to kill little girls in the alleged hope of causing their mothers to cling to him more tightly, when even Christian common sense says you should run away from anything that is likely to cause such a disaster.

By the way, Wallace:  Why do you drive safely in traffic?  Couldn't it be that God wants your car to hit and kill a pedestrian because God knows his surviving family will turn to Christ in their emotional upheaval?

And if God really does have a part to play in the reasons why accidents that you cause end up hurting other people, do you have enough courage and conviction on this to state God's involvement to be a factual truth and therefore require God's involvement to be litigated when you are sued?

Why not?  Isn't it a "fact" that God had a part to play in negligence on your part that caused injury to others?  If so, then doesn't your Christian commitment to biblical truth outweigh the law of the secular courts that tell you to keep religious explanations out of the court (Acts 5:29)?

Maybe you are consistent in your beliefs, and therefore believe America should change its civil and criminal laws so that the jury is allowed to make a possible finding that "God made me do it" or "the devil made me do it" was the real truth of the matter?

In fact, Jesus understands our suffering better than anyone who ever lived.

More proof that you are preaching the choir, and in no sense trying to convince skeptics.

Unlike other theistic, religious systems, Christianity is grounded on the finished work of a suffering Savior who died on a cross and rose from the grave to show us that there is life beyond our pain, joy beyond our calamity, and hope beyond our worst moments. God still reigns, and he is present with us in our storms.

And if they purchase your materials right now, they can save 10% in their effort to help the Holy Spirit do a job he doesn't need any help doing.  Amen?