My debate with Matthew has began focusing on his belief that
objective moral requirements exist, and cannot be accounted for except by positing God as their point of origin.
Here's Matthew's post and my reply following. I made my reply short because answering in too comprehensive fashion usually only gives somebody something more to hide behind.
"Matt,
e.
It’s like answering “which morals am I required to live by
in this house?”, by saying “the ones that it would be wrong to omit”.
Matt replies:
No that again seems to conflate issues, when I ask what
morals I am required to live by in this house, I am using the word “morals” in
the sociological sense, that is a set of norms a person believes in or accepts.
But, when I refer to moral requirements I am not referring
to moral beliefs. I am talking about what morality in fact requires. Unless you
think a person or community is never mistaken in what they believe we ought to
do, you have to grant a distinction between what a person or groups thinks and
accepts is required and what actually is required.
The fact you spend so much time and energy arguing that the
religious and moral beliefs of ancient Hebrew society or the bible are mistaken
and in error, suggests you actually are committed to this distinction.
I had said:
Can you provide a specific example of a moral requirement
that you think it is morally wrong to omit?
Matt replies:
The claim its morally wrong to omit a moral requirement is
analytically true, it’s a tautology.
But here is an example, I think there is a moral requirement
to not torture children purely for entertainment. I think this requirement
holds even if a person or community thinks it doesn’t so that a community which
endorsed and practises child torture would in be mistaken. I also think it’s a
categorical requirement so that even if torturing a child for fun met some goal
or desire you had, perhaps the sadistic desire to have fun seeing children
scream in pain, then the requirement still holds. I think anyone who
deliberately does this without some form of mitigation is guilty of not
following these requirements worthy of blame and censure, a
Your free to disagree of course, you can maintain that a
community that believes in and practises torturing children for fun doesn’t do
anything wrong at all or that such requirements are really hypothetical and
don’t apply to people who have sadistic desires, or your free to think people
who deliberately and knowingly torture children are worthy of praise and
condemnation if you like. If you want to bite that bullet, then you can, but I
think ranting about God being a moral monster and how awful it is for ancient
cultures to have narratives about killing children ceases to become a terribly
plausible past time if you do bite this bullet.
But all this is irrelevant, because, in the argument, I
cited from my response to Carrier, I pointed out the biblical passages you
cite, even if your take on them was correct, doesn’t actually provide the
slightest reason for rejecting a divine command theory. That attacks the
doctrine of inerrancy which is a different and logically distinct position to
divine command theories. I note you haven’t responded to it, you have again
gone on a long tirade about what you think I argued in a book on a different
topic.
-----------------------------------
The short reply I posted there:
Matt,
Again, I've written about 6 pages of point by point reply, but again, I will only reply with what I think is the most critical area we disagree on, since I'm well aware of the risk of the point being lost if too much material is posted. If you are curious about how I answered every little point, it's at my blog http://turchisrong.blogspot.com
When I asked you for a specific example of what you deem a "moral requirement", you resorted to the classic example of a prohibition on torturing children solely for entertainment.
Several problems:
Where is the moral yardstick you are using, which you apparently think is violated whenever anybody tortures a child solely for fun?
Do you say this is immoral because the bible tells you so?
Do you say this is immoral because the consensus of human opinion on the matter through history says it is immoral, and you think atheists cannot sufficiently account for why that pattern exhibited itself in human values?
--------------------------------
I did not post there my comprehensive point-by-point reply because I felt it was too long and might cause Flannagan to focus on something other than what I thought was the critical shortcoming he overlooked.
But for those who are curious, here is my full reply, available only here as follows:
--------------------------
Oct 27, 2017 at 6:42 pm
Matt,
e.
“It’s like answering “which morals am I required to live by
in this house?”, by saying “the ones that it would be wrong to omit”.
No that again seems to conflate issues, when I ask what
morals I am required to live by in this house, I am using the word “morals” in
the sociological sense, that is a set of norms a person believes in or accepts.
----------If you were dealing with a person who denied the
existence of cars, you wouldn’t be answering the denier’s question (“what is a
car?”), by providing a perfectly synonymous word “vehicle”. He still denies the existence of cars,
regardless of whatever different way you choose to describe such things. So likewise, you think my denial of objective
morals is as unjustified as the denial of cars.
If you aren’t beneficially clarifying “cars” by pointing out that they
are also called “vehicles”, then you aren’t beneficially clarifying “moral
requirements” by pointing out that these are “something that its morally
wrong to omit.” In both cases, you are
simply providing a synonymous phrase as substitute. But thanks to my requests for
clarification, you finally answered in a way that infuses more information into
your proposition, thus allowing for more focused critique.
“But, when I refer to moral requirements I am not referring
to moral beliefs"
----------That’s most unfortunate since you cannot
demonstrate that moral requirements have any existence outside of the human
mind, that is, if your below-argument about prohibiting child-torture has
anything to say about it.
I am talking about
what morality in fact requires.
---------Adding “in fact” to “morality” doesn’t magically
broaden morality beyond the human mind that so far appears to be the sole
ground of the existence of all morals humans have.
"Unless you think a person or community is
never mistaken in what they believe we ought to do, you have to grant a
distinction between what a person or groups thinks and accepts is required and
what actually is required.”
----------My basis for saying Hitler’s moral opinion on
treatment of the Jews in WW2 was mistaken, is completely subjective, I do not
mean mistaken “in fact”, as if there was some objective moral yardstick to
which Hitler’s Holocaust could be compared and found wanting. It is neither irrational nor unreasonable to
be standing solely on a subjective basis when declaring that another person’s
moral opinion is mistaken. Again, when
you were a child, if your dad told you to go to bed at 9 p.m. on a school night
and you protested, he would be perfectly reasonable and rational to assert
“your moral opinion that the proper bedtime for you tonight is something other
than 9 p.m., is mistaken”, despite the fact that there is no objective moral yardstick
telling anybody what bedtime is proper for such kids.
So my belief that others’ moral opinions are ‘mistaken’,
need not imply “what morality in fact” requires.
The fact you spend so much time and energy arguing that the
religious and moral beliefs of ancient Hebrew society or the bible are mistaken
and in error, suggests you actually are committed to this distinction.
--------------My belief that the OT ethics are mistaken and
in error, arises from my entirely subjective beliefs about morals, which I
wasn’t born with, but were instilled in my by environmental conditioning. You appear to under the mistaken notion that
if morality is ultimately subjective, we cannot be reasonable or rational to
say one moral is “better” or “worse” than another. Not true.
See above. Believing yourself to
be in possession of an objective moral yardstick helps your moral criticisms
sound like they have stronger footing that a completely subjective critique,
but alas, whether any such objective moral yardstick actually exists, must be decided
first, a thing you should have established, but for whatever reason, chose not
to do so far.
“Can you provide a specific example of a moral requirement
that you think it is morally wrong to omit?”
The claim its morally wrong to omit a moral requirement is analytically
true, it’s a tautology.
------------Only if we assume that “moral requirement” can
be an objective thing that exists outside the human mind. Had you done what you needed to do (i.e.,
establish the existence of an objective moral yardstick outside the human mind,
then pointed out that “do not torture children solely for entertainment
purposes” was written therein) we wouldn’t be having this discussion, as you
would have won the debate. Assuring me
that torturing children for fun is objectively immoral doesn’t establish where
that moral comes from.
“But here is an example, I think there is a moral
requirement to not torture children purely for entertainment. I think this
requirement holds even if a person or community thinks it doesn’t so that a
community which endorsed and practises child torture would in be mistaken.”
------------What objective standard do you use to determine
that those who torture children for fun are mistaken? The bible?
The consensus view of humanity throughout its history? What exactly?
“I also think it’s a categorical requirement so that even if
torturing a child for fun met some goal or desire you had, perhaps the sadistic
desire to have fun seeing children scream in pain, then the requirement still
holds. I think anyone who deliberately does this without some form of
mitigation is guilty of not following these requirements worthy of blame and
censure, a”
1. I
don’t understand what you expect to accomplish here. You are not establishing an objective moral by
simply citing what you think is an example of such and reasons why you’d’ think
the gainsayers “worthy of blame and censure…”
The way you establish an objective moral is by first demonstrating the
existence of an objective moral yardstick.
THEN you prove certain morals to be objective by simply showing that
they appear on such yardstick. You
haven’t done that. If your moral was
“objective”, it would have to originate from some source independent of the
human mind. Your above argument makes no
attempt to show that prohibiting child torture for fun is an objective thing
with grounding somewhere other than the human mind.
2. If
that moral requirement is objective (i.e., it’s existence doesn’t depend on my
own existence), please tell me where to find it so I can examine it more
fully.
3. You
need to clarify what maximum age the person can be and still be a “child”
according to this moral requirement you now give, otherwise we run the risk of
disagreeing when I start talking about how the sexual excitement of the Hebrew
male in the ANE is just “entertainment” by another word since he need not
intend to get the girl pregnant, and the pain his 12-year old bride experiences
on their wedding night as her hymen is torn constituted the “torture” of a girl
that is still properly call a “child” even if her own culture’s relative
viewpoint said she became an adult at that age.
4. You
need to clarify what level of discomfort to the child constitutes “torture”. A 4 year old little brother screams in pain
and says “ouch! quit it you meanie!” when his older brother pinches him solely
because the older brother is sadistic and is entertained by inflicting short
bursts of temporary pain. This would
fulfill all of your above stated criteria , but most parents would not call this
rather typical type of sibling interaction “torture of children for purely
entertainment reasons”. You think such
older brothers are objectively wrong, but the older brothers themselves don’t
think it objectively wrong, so how do we decide which of you is correct?
5. How essential is “scream in pain” to your
definition of “torture” in the example you gave? Some kids have greater ability than others to
suppress their urge to scream when pain is inflicted, thus raising the problem
of whether the older brother who sadistically causes pain to his younger
sibling solely for sadistic entertainment, can escape your accusation all
because the child did not in fact ‘scream in pain’. Can your moral be violated even where the
child, able to scream, successfully resists the urge to scream?
6. I
can think of real world exceptions: Many
parents have concluded that because the little brother was “asking for it” by
constantly teasing and poking fun at the older brother, the older brother’s
sadistic infliction of pain sufficient to induce the child to scream “ouch”
(usually a pinch, nothing permanent or extreme) is morally justified, despite
the fact that the brother has other ways to deal with the child, indicating his
infliction of pain wasn’t necessitated but merely desired for its own sake, the
very definition of sadism.
7. A
very rich man tells a single mother living in squalor and starvation that if
she allows him to pinch her 6-year old diseased daughter (“child”) on the arm
to the point that the daughter screams in pain (screaming in pain = your
definition of torture), this man will deposit a million dollars in her checking
account. She consents, he pinches, the
daughter screams, they receive a million dollars, and mom uses that money to
purchase a medical cure for her daughter’s disease, and to purchase homes, food
and clothes for 500 other families also living in squalor locally. Then you come along and say “that man had no
other motive in torturing your daughter, than his own sadistic entertainment,
so you were objectively wrong to accept his bribe and help facilitate her
torture.” She says “the benefits
resulting in relief to so much terrible suffering (reduction of the number of
starving homeless children by putting them in houses with money to their
families) clearly outweighed whatever immorality was involved in the rich man
pinching my daughter for less than 2 seconds.”
How would you convince her that despite the relief of much suffering,
the price was too high? Would you also
confront her like this if some of those families she helped were Christians who
could be heard praising god for this relief as you walk on your way to confront
her?
8. If
the ancient pagans were as evil as you allege (i.e., burning children alive, as
evangelical apologist Frank Turek routinely alleges about the Canaanites), they
likely harmed children in warfare for their entertainment even when not
necessary to the battle, just like they raped some of the female prisoners of
war despite this not being necessary to winning a battle. So a biblical rebuttal to your child-torture
prohibition would consist of are all those bible verses in which God admits
responsibility for motivating the pagans to do things to the Hebrew kids that
constitute unnecessary to winning a battle, which means torture inflicted for
entertainment, such as beating them to death (it’s torture causing the child to
scream in pain even if only for a few seconds before they actually die) and
ripping fetuses out of pregnant women. See Isaiah 13:15-16 and Hosea 13:15-16. As I informed you earlier, one evangelical
scholar commenting on the infamous Psalm 137:9 said beating children against
the rocks was typical of ANE warfare, so you cannot escape God’s enabling of
pagans to torture children solely for entertainment purposes by pretending
Isaiah and Hosea were engaging in hyperbole.
Their threats of woe referred to horrific realities of warfare (2nd
Kings 15:16) that the Hebrews were well
aware could be imposed on them should enemy nations decide to attack.
9. The
teaching in Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32, that you are not allowed to add or take
away from the Mosaic law text, strongly implies that the author thought the law
was sufficiently exhaustive that any act of a human being not
prohibited/condemned in the Law, could not be punished by the elders (i.e.,
they would have no legal justification to impose such punishment) . That being the case, there is a law that
indicates slave-owners could not be prosecuted for their beating a slave to
death, if the slave takes at least 1 day to die:
20 "If a man strikes his male or female slave
with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished.
21 "If,
however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his
property. (Exod. 21:20-21 NAU)
Evangelical scholars such as J.I, Durham agree that this is immunizing the
slave owner here in those cases where there is at least 1 day’s delay between
the fatal beating and the slave’s actual death:
The broad stance of our contributors can rightly be
called evangelical, and this term is to be understood in its positive, historic
sense of a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation, and to the truth and
power of the Christian gospel…A slave owner who strikes his slave a fatal blow
with a stick or a club (שׁבט) is to be punished unless the slave survives the
blow for a day or so. In that case, he is to suffer no punishment beyond his
financial loss in the death of his slave.
Durham, J. I. (2002). Vol. 3: Word
Biblical Commentary : Exodus. Word Biblical Commentary (Page 323). Dallas: Word,
Incorporated.
Hebrew slave-owners also had kids as slaves (Exodus
21:4). If we agree with apologists for
the sake of argument that Numbers 31:18 is only authorizing Hebrew men to take
little girls as house-slaves and not as wives, then because the girls are
defined in that verse are virgin, we may assume most of them taken as slaves
were between infancy and about 12 years of age.
Now suppose a Hebrew man takes one such girl of 6 years old to his house
as house slave, then pinches her on the arm for no other reason than his
sadistic entertainment because he likes to hear her say “ouch!” in fluent Midianite. Her screaming in pain fulfills your
above-cited criteria of “torture”, and his doing this for no reason than his
sadistic desire to hear her scream, fulfills your above-cited criteria of
“entertainment”, and as a 6-year old girl she fulfills your criteria of
“child”. This then would constitute
violation of your allegedly objective prohibition against child-torture, but
because it doesn’t violate anything in the exhaustive Mosaic law, it cannot be
called evil and thus under biblical standards this act wouldn’t be evil.
(the Mosaic law clearly isn’t actually exhaustive, but that
truth doesn’t help you, Deut. 4:2 and 12:32 commit you to the premise that the
author of the Mosaic law INTENDED for the readers to view it as exhaustive,
which is what logically arises from the prohibition on adding to it. You don’t need to add anything to the laws
when they are sufficient to govern whatever civil or criminal case that might possibly
arise).
Exodus 22:22-25 forbids afflicting an orphan, but because
the death-penalty is imposed where the afflicted cry out to god (v. 23), we
either assume the affliction imposed was something more serious than a mere pinch
on the arm, or we assume that God would kill a Hebrew slave-owner for nothing
more than afflicting an orphan slave girl with a pinch on the arm. The former seems to accord with Christian
common sense the most.
I am very well aware that you didn’t bring up bible
inerrancy. I am arguing that your own
commitment to biblical inerrancy logically prevents you from saying God always
disapproves of the type of child-torture you describe, and thus what you
describe cannot be objectively immoral, had you properly taken into
consideration what is required by other presuppositions you hold to. And yet you insist that objective morals
cannot exist independently of God.
“Your free to disagree of course, you can maintain that a community
that believes in and practises torturing children for fun doesn’t do anything
wrong at all or that such requirements are really hypothetical and don’t apply
to people who have sadistic desires, or your free to think people who
deliberately and knowingly torture children are worthy of praise and
condemnation if you like. If you want to bite that bullet, then you can, but I
think ranting about God being a moral monster and how awful it is for ancient
cultures to have narratives about killing children ceases to become a terribly
plausible past time if you do bite this bullet.”
-----------I won’t be biting that bullet, you haven’t done
anything to establish that torturing children for fun IS this objectively
immoral act you claim it to be. The best
you can possibly do is point out that atheists cannot adequately explain why
most human beings in history have found it immoral to torture children purely
for entertainment reasons, after which you could infer that such
atheist-failure makes it likely that this pattern in human morality can only be
accounted for by positing a god. But you
didn’t even make THAT argument.
“But all this is irrelevant, because, in the argument, I
cited from my response to Carrier, I pointed out the biblical passages you
cite, even if your take on them was correct, doesn’t actually provide the
slightest reason for rejecting a divine command theory.”
------------I cannot give credence to the DCT theory because
I am an atheist and find the concept of God to be incoherent. If you believe the Christian version of DCT
is the most powerful case to be made for DCT, then when the atheist refutes the
Christian version of DCT, they have refuted what you think is the most powerful
case for DCT. The mere possibility that
a non-Christian god might exist and justify DCT is about as frightful to the
atheist as the mere possibility that the Book of Mormon is the word of
God. Invoking mere possibilities is not
the way debates are made beneficial. So
far, the incoherency of the god-concept appears reasonable, and if so,
decimates ANY version of the DCT.
That attacks the
doctrine of inerrancy which is a different and logically distinct position to
divine command theories.
----------But you don’t give serious credence to any
non-Christian form of the DCT, so if an atheist refutes the Christian or
bible-inerrancy based form of DCT, you are disqualified from the game
regardless. You cannot allow that God’s
truth is ever disqualified from the game, so my advice is that you honor Christ
as highly as possible and insist that the only form of the DCT arguent that
will suffice is the specifically Christian version.
Like it or not, my friend, you DO rise or fall with biblical
inerrancy.
I note you haven’t responded to it, you have again gone on a
long tirade about what you think I argued in a book on a different topic.
-----------yeah I know:
when you blog that apples are fruit, we are “changing the subject” if we
reply that apples can also be green or red.
After all, the color of apples is on a topic different than their
essential nature as fruit.
I’ve also asked you before how we might discuss online my
specific problems with your beliefs, problems that you haven’t brought up in
your blogs. Are you going to answer?
