My Answer to Matthew Flannagan's Second Challenge to Moral Relativism

This is my reply to an article by Dr. Matthew Flannagan entitled

The Challenge of Moral Relativism: Arguments for Relativism

June 22nd, 2018 by Matt Flannagan

This post is based on a series of talks I have given on moral relativism. In my last post, I looked at what relativism and objectivism are. Here I examine some common reasons people accept or defend relativism I will offer critical commentary on these arguments.

When examining any position in philosophy it is important to understand what motivates people to hold it, why do people find it plausible? Two reasons are commonly cited.

You must be a Christian before you are a philosopher, so you must choose obedience to the bible where this conflicts with what you wish to do as a philosopher.  The bible does not permit you to wrangle words, despite the fact that you cannot refute moral relativism without going round and round with others about the meanings of words:

 14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. (2 Tim. 2:14 NAU)

It is hardly believable that Paul was only prohibiting the shockingly babyish "yes it is; not it isn't" type bantering, I prefer to presume that the people who converted to Paul's gospel in Timothy's church were just a bit more emotionally mature than a 3 year old.  He was clearly prohibiting anything that could be reasonably defined as word-wrangling.  Go ahead, challenge me with your alternative interpretation, I'll respond, leaving you without excuse for willfully defying those biblical commands that directly apply to Christians.

    The Argument from Cultural Diversity

One common motivation for relativism, particularly cultural relativism, is the observation that different societies have different moral beliefs.  To use a well-known example: people in 14th century Europe believed witchcraft was seriously immoral and executed witches. People in 21st century New Zealand doesn’t believe this. Some societies endorse polygamy others endorse monogamy.   Facts like these are held to cast doubt on the idea there is a single true morality relativism-1independent of what society thinks.

And you cannot overcome that prima facie case for relativism by trifling about the technicality that if God issued objective moral commands, these would exist whether we believed it or not.  If the tooth-fairy left me $2 million in a secret location, that would be true whether you believed it or not. But in both cases, we are dealing with a pretty big "if", and nothing important will happen until you move beyond the greasy marsh of the solely theoretical, to the practical.  Either state the one moral you believe is most clearly objective, or stop telling yourself that moral relativists find your arguments the least bit compelling.

 Response to the argument from cultural diversity.

Objectivists make several responses to this argument.

 Distinguishing Separate idea’s.

First, they argue that this argument conflates two separate ideas.  (a) the idea that beliefs about what is right and wrong differ from society to society. And  (b) that idea that what really is right, and wrong differs from society.  The fact different societies have different moral beliefs provides evidence for the first of these ideas. It establishes (a).  However, cultural relativism affirms something stronger than this. Relativists believe moral standards are correct or incorrect relative to society. 

Well then, you were wrong to previously declare that when a relativist labels a moral as "wrong", they are necessarily presupposing the existence of an objective standard.  Not they aren't.  Their standard for deciding what's wrong is their own relative opinion.  If you insist this is problematic, then maybe you should argue that drawing conclusions about what time it is, is unreasonable, because 3 p.m. in New Zealand is never 3 p.m. in Scandinavia. Time is utterly relative, yet if somebody asked you for the time, you would do so, with no worries about the fact that time is ultimately relative.  So stop telling us that a subjective basis for declaring a moral to be "wrong" is reasonable.  In practical life, we very often base our judgments of right or wrong on an admittedly subjective standard.

Cultural Relativists contend an action is wrong for a person because their society condemns that action.  Hence, they affirm (b).

However, that the fact different societies have different moral beliefs doesn’t support (b) It’s possible that when different societies make different judgements about something that one of them is mistaken.

 And we are still waiting for you to provide an example of the one moral whose objectivity you think is most clearly demonstrable.

When don’t normally assume that when societies disagree on something the correct answer is relative to society. 

Speak for yourself and your objectivist friends.  We moral relativists do normally draw that conclusion.

If different societies have different beliefs about the shape or age of the earth, we would not take this to demonstrate that the earth’s actual age and shape differ in various societies.

Fallacy of false analogy:  the shape of the earth is demonstrable empirically.  The objective wrongness of adultery is not.  Yet you necesarily imply with such analogy that you can disprove the moral goodness of any act you deem objectively wrong, just as easily as you can disprove the flat-earth theory.

So why do we do this when the disagreement involves moral judgements? 

For the same reason you think it is objectively wrong to burn a teen prostitute to death for working out of her priest fathers house (Leviticus 21:9).  Either you agree, or you start looking like the foolish moral relativist who says burning your daughter to death might perhaps be morally good in certain situations. 

The mere fact societies make different judgements on a topic tells us nothing about whether those judgements are objectively true or false.

Correct.

Exaggerated disagreement

Second, objectivists argue that appeals to cultural diversity often exaggerate the amount of cross-cultural disagreement over moral standards. Often when societies have different moral beliefs, this isn’t due to different moral standards but the result of disagreement over certain factual questions.  Consider the abovementioned case of witchcraft. In the 14th-century people believed in the existence of witches. They believed witches met together secretly and sacrificed children and ate these children in a ritual feast. They bound themselves by oath to the devil to use supernatural powers to harm, and kill innocent people. Hence the believed witchcraft involved the deliberate conspiracy to cause serious harm to innocent people.

 They probably also believed it was objectively morally good to burn witches, and would have sneered at devil-protecting liberals who campaigned for less barbaric treatment of the accused.

We don’t hold these beliefs today but if we did our opinion of witchcraft would be very different. Suppose we believed there was a group which conspired to randomly kill and maim innocent people and killed and ate children as part of its rituals.  We probably would legally suppress this group. And many people would support the death penalty for those who did these things, killing children is a horrendous form of murder after all.

But you aren't linking the horrendousness back to "god" or showing that child-murder violates any "objective" moral.  

The difference between us and 14th-century Europeans is due, in a large part, to different factual beliefs not simply a disagreement over moral standards.

Our supporting a death penalty less barbaric than burning at the stake testifies to the level of wrongness we and 14th century Christians disagree on.  It wasn't like burning alive was the only method of death in the 14th century.  They preferred that for witches because they felt the witch-crimes were far more heinous than simply killing and eating children.  These fanatics thought violation of "god's order" was the height of satanic rebellion.   You are quite aware of many hideous crimes people commit against children, but I doubt you'd recommend death by burning, since you see it as moral overkill.

 Trust me, the difference is moral and not merely factual.

    Relativism Promotes Tolerance

A second motivation behind relativism is the idea that moral relativism promotes tolerance and humility. When you realise that your own moral standards are correct only for you, you are less likely to fall into arrogance and pass judgements on the beliefs and practises of others. Nor are you likely to demand they change these practices and adopt yours.

Response:

Objectivists respond that this concern reveals a subtle contradiction. The argument assumes that tolerance and humility are good things, it assumes people should be tolerant and humble and should not be arrogant and rush to judgement. 

 I agree with you that tolerance and humility are the subjective judgment call of the relativist.

However, if relativism is correct, this isn’t the case. According to cultural relativism, it is wrong to be intolerant only if your society believes that it is.  Societies which are imperialistic and arrogant and believes its permissible to colonialize other nations don’t do any wrong if it imposes its moral judgements on to others.  Similarly, according to subjectivism humility and tolerance are wrong only if you think it is. If someone has bigoted or arrogant beliefs, then bigotry is morally required of them, and they shouldn’t act in a humble, tolerant way.

 I agree that some relativists irrationally presume that their own opinions are more objective than others.

Objectivists maintain that one can condemn individuals or societies who have arrogant and bigoted practices only if you hold these things are wrong despite the fact societies or individuals may endorse them. There is something incoherent about offering a moral criticism about the arrogant and intolerant moral judgements of societies or individuals and then concluding you can’t make judgements about societies and individuals.

 Thanks again for telling us what Christian objevists believe.  Do you ever plan to get down to actual business, and state the specific moral proposition whose objectivity you believe to be the most clearly demonstrable?

See my answer to Dr. Flannagan's third installment here.

My answer to Matthew Flannagan's First Challenge of Moral Relativism

This is my reply to an article by Christian philosopher Matthew Flannagan entitled

The challenge of Moral Relativism:
Relativism vs Objectivism: understanding the issues:

Jun 19 (3 days ago)

by Matt Flannagan

This post is the first of a series of posts which reproduce a talk on Moral Relativism I gave at both the Auckland and Tauranga  Confident Christianity Conference's and was given earlier in the year as part at a series of talks on apologetics at Orewa Community Church.

In moral debates about you will hear slogans like “if you don’t like abortion don’t have one?” Or “if you don’t like pornography don’t watch it” the basic idea is that if you think a particular action is morally wrong, then you shouldn’t do it, however, it is mistaken or inappropriate to claim that people who don’t share your opinion shouldn’t do it. The slogans in question assume that moral principles correctly apply only to people who believe in those principles.

Yes, but only in the sense that the subjective morals of the speaker apply.  When somebody says "if you don't like porn, don't watch it", all they are doing is imposing their own personal morals on you.  They are neither expressing nor implying that they can either prove your own morals to be objectively "wrong", or that they derived this specific "if you don't like porn, don't watch it" morality from some objective or absolute source.

The pervasiveness of this kind of thinking can be seen in a media report I watched several years ago. A pornographer relativism-1had organised a festival on the main street of Auckland, called boobs on bikes. It involved people, including topless women, riding down Queenstreet displaying erotica. There was some controversy over this event. During the media, coverage journalist's interviewed several people present to watch the event about what they thought. And what was interesting was how many people responded by saying something like this "It is the 21st century” or “we live in a liberal society”.

I agree with most Christians that yes, those who don't believe in god can get irrationally extreme in their actions and attempts to influence society to keep pushing the moral envelope.

Notice what happens when people do this, they were asked whether a particular action or policy was right or wrong. They answered by appealing to what they perceived to be currently fashionable or conventionally accepted.  The assumption is that whats right or wrong is determined by what is conventionally accepted or fashionable.

But that is the basis for all civilized law, at least in a democracy.  Anything that 51% of the voting public deem morally good, becomes law.  If 51% of the people of New Zealand feel that abortion should be made legal for all women, that will become law.  And yet this could reasonably be boiled down to "what's conventionally accepted or fashionable".  The fact that there are those who take positions that are far to the right or left extreme of the currently prevailing consensus, might cause us to instinctively reject the new morality, but that hardly implies that we had any objective basis underlying the older morality in the first place.

These responses reflect a position called Relativism by moral philosophers.  In a bestselling book. The Closing of the American Mind. The prominent philosopher Alan Bloom opened by saying:

There is one thing a professor can be certain absolutely of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.

That's understandable, as humans we automatically favor the morality that works for us, and that takes place long before and sometimes in perpetual absence of any ability to defend it against criticism.  We need to adopt some type of morality between birth and adulthood in order to survive, yet we don't need to know how to defend it from criticism in order to survive.  The fact that professional philosophers disagree amongst themselves on whether objective morals exist, counsels that we not judge too harshly the young adults cannot defend their beleifs about the subject as they enter college.

If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students' reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4.

That's how evolution programmed us.  We naturally prioritize whatever moral system we personally find to facilitate our comfort and growth.  If everybody held off adopting any morality until they learned how to defend their moral choices from criticism, most wouldn't stay alive long enough to encounter said criticism.

These are things you don't think about. The students' backgrounds are as various as America can provide. Some are religious, some atheists; some are to the Left, some to the Right; some intend to be scientists, some humanists or professionals or businessmen; some are poor, some rich. They are unified only in their relativism and in their allegiance to equality. And the two are related in a moral intention. The relativity of truth is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it.

Strawman...you were talking about the relativity of morality.  Now you are talking about the relativity of truth. But the imposition of one's relative moral upon another does not logically have any relation to "truth".  A father's imposition of a 9 p.m. bedtime on his young son on a school night is a completely relative moral, there is nothing in the bible, natural theology or the physical world or the moral intuition held by most civilized educated adults that tells parents kids must go to bed on a school night at any certain time.  The only "truth" implicated by this situation is the "truth" that Dad has laid down a subjective moral that the child is required to obey.  That is the objectivist's basic problem:  the category error of trying to associate with morals with truths that exist outside the human mind.  You may as well try to meaningfully discuss what's north of the number 4.

Though I don't deny that in your group of moral relativist university students, yes, some of them probably did buy into that new age crap that says a fact of reality can be true for one person, but be untrue for another person.  

They have all been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable natural rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society.

But those inalienable natural rights only came from the subjective mindset of America's founders, and those views were obviously not shared by the King of England, from whom we fled in order to form a more perfect union.

That it is a moral issue for students is revealed by the character of their response when challenged - a combination of disbelief and indignation: "Are you an absolutist?," the only alternative they know, uttered in the same tone as "Are you a monarchist?" or "Do you believe in witches?" This latter leads into the indignation, for someone who believes in witches might well be a witch-hunter or a Salem judge. The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance.

Probably has more to do with their being young adults and thus naturally predisposed to hate anything that tries to put a damper on their free expression...including somebody else's belief that morals are objective.

Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating.

I would agree that from the standpoint of keeping order in society, there are larger issues to consider in the education of children than simply whether we inculcate a sense of openness and toleration.   Even the liberals have their limits: they love to criminalize and otherwise repress certain forms of free speech such as racism and discrimination based on religion, gender or race.  Only the stupid unthinking liberal says all views should be equally allowed.  All that would do is create a rat's nest of social chaos.

Openness - and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings - is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger.

That's correct.  If you get it in your head that God wants you to bomb an abortion clinic, you won't be any more easily dissuaded from doing it than Christian apologists can be dissuaded from Christianity.   By battling against "true believers", we significantly reduce the possibility that some religious person will start thinking that measures which harm society are the will of God.

The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism and chauvinism.

Would any fool disagree with this assessment?

The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all. (Bloom 1987)

Bloom was beginning a scathing critique of what is often called moral relativism. Note that Bloom mentions students entering university. One reason for this is that relativism is not a common position in contemporary philosophy or ethics, and most philosophers I know of think it is pretty clearly a mistaken position.

Then direct them to my blog, and I'll be happy to correct their mistaken view that any moral could possibly be "objective" or "absolute".

However, it is extremely common at the popular level.  Because relativism is is an important challenge to Christian ethics it is important to reflect on how Christians respond to this challenge.

Not so fast.  Your Christian faith requires that you prioritize your conformity to biblical teaching, above your opinion that moral relativism needs to be publicly refuted.  It doesn't matter if the bible authorizes you to do apologetics.  There are also passages that forbid you from wrangling words:

 14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. (2 Tim. 2:14 NAU)

 Yet you obviously could not do a very good job of refuting relativism unless you fought a moral relativist upon the precise meaning of words.  No, you cannot negate the full import of this passage with others like Jude 4.  First, that would be the fallacy of employing inerrancy as a hermeneutic (i.e., you trash an otherwise contextually justified interpretation of "don't wrangle words" because you are sure this interpretation could contradict something taught elsewhere in the bible).  Well excuse me, but because inerrancy is hotly debated even among inerrantists, with most Christian scholars denying it outright,  it seems it does not deserve to be exalted in our minds to the status of governing hermeneutic, thus it would be more prudent to avoid using it as a hermeneutic until there is as much universal agreement on it as we have for other tools of interpretation, such as "context" and "grammar", whose benefits no sane person denies.

Second, even if you insist on harmonizing "don't wrangle words" with "defend the faith!", the most plausible harmony would be that you defend the faith without wrangling words.  Sure, you might think that a defense that doesn't attack the heretic's reasons, is rather weak, but that is your problem:  your desire to prove wrong each basis the heretic or moral relativist has, might indeed be a better idea, but like I said, you are a Christian first.  You need to worry about conforming yourself to your own bible before you worry about launching a war of words against positions you disagree with.

Third, no, Dr. Flannagan, you cannot use "But Jesus and Paul had verbal wars with their own critics, and Christians must follow their example!" to get away from "don't wrangle words".  Common sense says that commands which are directed specifically to the Christians, take precedence over the more subjective controversial matter of whether we should do something merely because Jesus and Paul did it.  And if Jesus and Paul wrangled words with their critics, that appears to contradict "do not wrangle words", and only an inerrantist would choose to expend energy trying to harmonize this "alleged" contradiction.

Fourth,  given that inerrancy doesn't qualify as a hermeneutic, it is pretty safe to say that the pastorals, if written by Paul, were written in his old age, just before execution, and therefore it is highly likely that at this point in his life he looked back on all the verbal wars he initiated with the Jews about Christ being predicted in the OT (Acts 17:2-3, 17,  18:19, etc) and had concluded, even if he didn't expressly state it, that all this wrangling of words was useless and only did more to ruin than rehabilitate the hearers.

Finally, Paul's own example included times when he would skip town after discovering he was in over his intellectual head, such as his quickly skipping town after he discovered the philosopher's at Mar's Hill didn't find his presentation the least bit threatening.  Upon their laughter at the resurrection, Paul leaves (Acts 17:32-33).  Sorry, Dr. Flannagan, but I've written a comprehensive article showing that the warnings against debate in the pastorals, when properly interpreted, do indeed condemn 99% of all scholarly Christian efforts to refute concepts which the Christian scholars themselves deem "foolish and ignorant speculations".

Dr. Flannagan, do you think moral relativism is a foolish and ignorant speculation?  Then you are commanded to turn away from anybody who advocates it:

 23 But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.
 24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,
 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:23-26 NAU)

No, Dr. Flannagan, you cannot get around the prohibition in v. 23 by noting that v. 24 ff require the Lord's bondservant to patiently teach those who are in error.  If you are an inerrantist, then you should reconcile v. 23 which what follows by saying you are to correct those who are in error without wrangling words.  You will say this calls for rather weak argument, but unfortunately, Paul's idea of correction had everything to do with the blind presumption that he was right, end of discussion, and nothing to do with scholarly consideration of the heretic's actual arguments.  When you are correcting those who are in error, you do so by warning them no more than twice, and you stay away from them if they don't acquiesce to Paul's viewpoint by the second warning:

  9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
 10 Reject a factious man after a first and second warning,
 11 knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.  (Tit. 3:9-11 NAU)

When you correct others, you do not engage in scholarly analysis of their various reasons for taking the position they do...instead you warn them.  Sorry, but Paul's idea of correcting error did not involve comprehensive analysis of the errant person's actual arguments.  You don't analyze another's argument by warning them. 

Flannagan continues:

    Relativism vs Objectivism: understanding the issues:

Christian’s, like Muslims and Jews, believe God has issued commands to human beings, and our moral duties are related to these commands.

And because moral relativism is true, Christians are divided on what exact moral duties anybody has under god.

No, Dr. Flannagan, you don't refute that point merely by saying Christian disagreement doesn't automatically falsify moral objectivism.  That's technically correct, but irrelevant in practical life.  The relativists are given nothing to worry about by your simply noting that objective morals could still exist despite Christians constantly disagreeing with each other about the matter.  So put your money where your mouth is: state clearly a specific moral proposition, and explain the reasons why you think it to be objective.  Stop sitting on the sidelines reminding us that no amount of in-house Christian debate necessarily disproves Christianity.

However, or not God exists or issues commands doesn’t depend on whether we think he does.

That's technically true.  But under that logic, whether or not the tooth-fairy exists or issues commands doesn't depend on whether we think she does.

You are wasting time with such technicalities. Give us the one moral proposition you believe to be the more clearly objective in its nature.

If God created the world, then this is a fact that occurred well before we were born and my believing or not believing it makes no difference to whether it occurred.

And if the tooth-fairy gave neanderthals money for teeth back in 150,000 b.c., then this is a fact that occurred well before we were born and my believing or not believing it makes no difference to whether it occurred.  I remind you to stop chanting about technicalities from the sidelines.  Get in the ring and put up your dukes.

If God did not create the world, hoping and wishing he has doesn't make the past change.

 If the tooth-fairy didn't give money to neaderthals for their teeth, hoping and wishing she would have, doesn't make the past change.

The same is true of God’s commanding, if God has issued commands then this is a fact, people may disagree with what he demands, but this disagreement doesn’t make any difference to whether the commands exist.

 That's a pretty big "if".  Go ahead...state the one moral command of God which you believe to be the one most clearly objective.  

And you are avoiding the whole purpose of debate.  The technicality that commands of God could still be real despite people disagreeing on the matter, is irrelevant to the practical goal of proving the moral relativist wrong.  We could agree with you on the technicality and that would still not give you the upper hand in the debate.  Now provide the most clearly objective moral you can think of, and your reasons for saying it is objective.

To illustrate the point here, return to the slogan I opened this talk with. Suppose someone was contemplating jumping off the sky tower. You responded “if you do that you’ll die” only to get the response. ‘Who are you to impose your belief in the law of gravity onto me?” I doubt anyone would be impressed by this response.

That's because no sane person denies the obvious scientific truth that gravity exists.  But assuring a jumper of the fatal effects of his intended actions, is a far cry from "adultery is objectively immoral".  Gravity's existence is far more empirically demonstrable than are "objective morals", even if not everything about gravity is known.  Gravity is subject to scientific testing and successful repeated predictions, it has far more an objective basis than does your own belief that adultery is objectively immoral.  Sorry Dr. Flannagan, but you are comparing apples to radio waves.

Whether or not the laws of gravity exist doesn’t depend on whether you believe it.

 I'll respond one last time to your time-wasting chants:  Whether the tooth-fairy exists doesn't depend on whether you believe it.  

Gods moral laws don’t differ from the laws or decrees by which he governs the universe. They either exist or they don’t.

 Ok...well...we are still waiting for you to state the specific moral proposition whose objective nature you believe to be the most clearly demonstrable.

This means that Christians are objectivists about morality. Objectivism holds that: certain moral standards are correct independently of whether you, I or our society believe they are or accept that they are.

 Yup, that's what Christian objectivism is, alright.  Now then, state the one moral proposition you believe is most clearly "objective along with your reasons for saying it is objective.

Some moral principles apply to people regardless of whether they choose to accept these principles, and if people do not accept these principles, they are making a mistake.

Yup, that's what Christian objectivists say alright.  Now then, state the one moral proposition you believe is most clearly "objective" along with your reasons for saying it is objective.

By contrast, relativists hold that moral hold that all moral judgements are correct or incorrect relative to different cultures or individuals. 

 That's correct. That's exactly why you are wrong in your prior statements to the effect that relativists are contradicting their own relativism by saying another's morals are "wrong".   I don't have to prove that my son's disobeying my imposed bedtime for him on a school night is objectively immoral, in order to reasonably characterize that rebellion as "wrong".  Not everything human beings say is "wrong" necessarily commits them to an objective standard.  I could tell my wife "adultery would be good for our marriage", she would scream "wrong!", but upon analysis, it would be proven that all she meant was that my proposal was a moral matter she disagreed with for personal reasons.

See my answer to Dr. Flannagan's second installment here.

My reply and challenge to Matthew Flannagan's objective morality, the baby-torture enigma, again

This is my reply to an article by Christian philosopher Matthew Flannagan entitled

The challenge of Moral Relativism:
Relativism vs Objectivism: understanding the issues:

Jun 19 (3 days ago)

by Matt Flannagan

While this post contains my direct challenge, I've also answered Flannagan point-by-point in each of his Challenge of Moral Relativism posts.  See answer to post 1, answer to post 2, answer to post 3.

I am strongly suspicious that Flannagan will do what he has done before, and what he is very good at...and escape answering my criticism on the merits, all because he thinks my reply is "off-topic".

But I've already called him on the carpet for this tactic.  I said:

I have a two-part response: a) you continue evading my most powerful rebuttal to you, and b) a request on how can I present you with my own scholarly rebuttals of your Christian beliefs in a way that doesn’t constitute me “changing the subject” or “evading the issue”...Second, I would like to know how I might go about presenting you with my criticism of bible inerrancy and my criticism of the Genocide book you co-authored by Copan, and present such in a way that doesn’t constitute my “changing the subject” or “evading” an issue.

 Flannagan did not specify how I might communicate to him certain challenges that would, in his opinion, technically go "off-topic" from a blog post he wrote.  Therefore he can hardly complain that I posted a strong rebuttal to his moral objectivism, in reply to his blog post wherein he asserts his belief in moral objectivism.

I told him before that under his criteria for what's off-topic, I'd be going "off-topic" if I wrote about green apples in reply to a post from him about red apples.  After all, he didn't raise the subject of green apples in his blog post, so discussion of green apples constitutes my "evasion" of the issue, amen?

(!?)

If Flannagan wishes to set forth any such trifling bullshit, let him remember Jesus who rebuked the Pharisees for focusing so much on technicalities that they ignored the more important stuff:

 23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. (Matt. 23:23 NAU)

Conservative inerrantist Christian scholar Craig Blomberg explains:

In the first two the Pharisees and scribes have misjudged priorities in God’s world; in the third and fourth they misjudge priorities in God’s Word. Minor matters are overly elevated; major ones are neglected. The former category includes tithing, even down to small herbs (“mint, dill and cummin”; cf. Lev 27:30). In the latter category appear “justice, mercy, and faithfulness.”…Christians in many ages have done a remarkable job of majoring on minors and minoring on majors. A scandal of the contemporary church is its unparalleled fragmentation into hundreds of denominations and groupings. Many of these divisions have been over issues nonessential to salvation. True Christians must stand uncompromisingly against all professing believers who promote teaching which, if embraced, would prevent people from being saved (Gal 1–2) but must bend over backwards to get along and cooperate with those who differ on doctrines that do not affect a person’s salvation (1 Cor 9:19–23). Otherwise our disunity seriously undermines Christian witness before a watching world.

Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.).

Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 345).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

So even if my reply to Flannagan was technically "off-topic", doesn't prudence and wisdom counsel that Flannagan prioritize replying to my challenge as somewhat more important than the earth-shattering debauchery of going "off-topic"?

I cross-post here the reply I posted to Flannagan's blog, linked above:
--------beginquote----------------

1 response so far ↓

Barry

Jun 23, 2018 at 8:48 am

Matt said:

“This means that Christians are objectivists about morality. Objectivism holds that: certain moral standards are correct independently of whether you, I or our society believe they are or accept that they are.”

If that is true, then you should be able to establish the correctness of the proposition

“torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes is objectively immoral”

WITHOUT relying on what anybody else “believes or accepts” about that subject.

Indeed, the dictionaries tell us that “objective” means

“not dependent on the mind for existence”

 

So go ahead…demonstrate that that the proposition

“torturing babies to death solely for entertainment purposes is objectively immoral”

is a true fact “not dependent on the mind for its existence.”

Another dictionary defines ‘objective’ as:

“having reality independent of the mind”

So go ahead…demonstrate that that the above-cited moral proposition has “reality independent of the mind”.

You know…just like you also don’t need any human input whatsoever to demonstrate anything else that you would characterize as having “objective” existence, such as trees.

If you start asking me questions, you’ll be violating the definition of objectivity. You don’t need my input on anything, nor do you need to know whether I accept or believe any certain way about it, to achieve your own stated goal of demonstrating the above-cited moral proposition to be objectively true.

You could also clear things up by directly answering the question of why you think said baby-torture is objectively immoral in the first place.

 

Is it immoral because the bible tells you so?

Is it immoral because most humans say it is immoral?

 

is it immoral because you personally find it revolting?

 Is it immoral because all strong feelings about a moral issue necessarily come from God?

Some other reason or reasons?

I look forward to your replies,

Barry

--------end of quoted reply------------

I could have added more problems:

Many Christians are 5-Point Calvinists and believe God has infallibly predestined each individual sinner to make the exact choices that they do, including sin.  Calvinists deny that God wishes to save everybody, and they happily blame God as the ultimate author of sin and evil.  Calvinists say our sense of freewill is entirely illusory, we do not have the ability to deviate from whatever future course of action God has predetermined for us.

Logically, that would require Calvinists to believe that the reason some people think it is morally permissible to torture babies to death solely for entertainment purposes, is because God predestined them to think and feel that way.  Nothing justifies a person's moral opinion more than the truth "God infallibly predestined me to feel this way and I had no ability to deviate from this result."

Then there's the small problem of god requiring that teen girls endure death by burning if they engage in prostitution before leaving their priest-father's house (Leviticus 21:9).  This moral came from God, so...was it "objective" (i.e., applicable to all people regardless of culture)?

Then there's the small problem of whether rape would be objectively immoral if God caused a man to rape a women.  Flannagan would, of course, immediately retort that the question is illegitimate since nothing in the bible says God would cause a man to rape a woman.  I beg to differ:

Isaiah 13, full chapter
 1 The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

 2 Lift up a standard on the bare hill, Raise your voice to them, Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.
 3 I have commanded My consecrated ones, I have even called My mighty warriors, My proudly exulting ones, To execute My anger.
 4 A sound of tumult on the mountains, Like that of many people! A sound of the uproar of kingdoms, Of nations gathered together! The LORD of hosts is mustering the army for battle.
 5 They are coming from a far country, From the farthest horizons, The LORD and His instruments of indignation, To destroy the whole land.
 6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
 7 Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man's heart will melt.
 8 They will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame.
 9 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it.
 10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light.
 11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.
 12 I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold And mankind than the gold of Ophir.
 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.
 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.
 19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
 20 It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.
 21 But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there.
 22 Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers And jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come And her days will not be prolonged. (Isa. 13:1-22 NAU)

Logically:

Premise 1:  Everything God does, is morally good.

Premise 2: God causes some men to rape women.

Conclusion: Therefore, when a man's rape of a women was caused by God, that rape was morally good.

Can we take God's clear admission of responsibility for causing rape ("I will stir up the Medes..."), at face value?  Or will Flannagan argue that the only objective way to interpret this is by presupposing biblical inerrancy and thus tossing out any interpretation that contradicts another part of the bible?

Hosea 13 describes much the saem type of divinely-caused atrocities:

 1 When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He exalted himself in Israel, But through Baal he did wrong and died.
 2 And now they sin more and more, And make for themselves molten images, Idols skillfully made from their silver, All of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, "Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!"
 3 Therefore they will be like the morning cloud And like dew which soon disappears, Like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor And like smoke from a chimney.
 4 Yet I have been the LORD your God Since the land of Egypt; And you were not to know any god except Me, For there is no savior besides Me.
 5 I cared for you in the wilderness, In the land of drought.
 6 As they had their pasture, they became satisfied, And being satisfied, their heart became proud; Therefore they forgot Me.
 7 So I will be like a lion to them; Like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside.
 8 I will encounter them like a bear robbed of her cubs, And I will tear open their chests; There I will also devour them like a lioness, As a wild beast would tear them.
 9 It is your destruction, O Israel, That you are against Me, against your help.
 10 Where now is your king That he may save you in all your cities, And your judges of whom you requested, "Give me a king and princes "?
 11 I gave you a king in My anger And took him away in My wrath.
 12 The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; His sin is stored up.
 13 The pains of childbirth come upon him; He is not a wise son, For it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.
 14 Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.
 15 Though he flourishes among the reeds, An east wind will come, The wind of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; And his fountain will become dry And his spring will be dried up; It will plunder his treasury of every precious article.
 16 Samaria will be held guilty, For she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, Their little ones will be dashed in pieces, And their pregnant women will be ripped open. (Hos. 13:1-16 NAU)

Once again, how can Flannagan accuse the pagan invaders who do these things of being objectively immoral if they are, in fact, doing what God wanted them to do?

Since when is it objectively immoral to do something God wanted you to do?

Does Flannagan think that sometimes God wants people to engage in objectively immoral acts?
 


If God wants you to force women to endure abortion-by-sword (v. 16), and if everything God wants is "good", then it is "good" to obey when God impells you to hack pregnant women to death.

And yet something tells me that Matthew Flannagan would probably insist that hacking a pregnant woman with a sword and yanking out the fetus constitutes an objectively immoral act.  And so, under Hosea 13, the infinitely good God wants certain people to engage in objectively immoral acts.

Now you know why I turned down several offers to become a Christian philosopher.

Cold Case Christianity: the bible is racist and imperfect

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

Cold Case Christianity: No GQ, the Bible is not Racist, Sexist or Boring

Posted: 18 Jun 2018 01:34 AM PDT

Recently, the editors of GQ (Gentlemen’s Quarterly online) released its list of 21 Books You Don’t Have to Read. They boldly claimed, “…not all the Great Books have aged well. Some are racist and some are sexist, but most are just really, really boring. So we—and a group of un-boring writers—give you permission to strike these books from the canon.” The Bible was smack dab in the middle of their list.

You may recognize a few other classic works on GQ’s roster of “racist,” “sexist,” and “boring” books: Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and A Farewell to Arms, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. These books were listed for a variety of reasons, but the editor’s explanation for the inclusion of the Bible was particularly harsh: “It is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned.”

While many may find those words to be rather severe, they actually sounded familiar to me when I first read the GQ article. As an atheist, I can remember saying something similar to a Christian co-worker. But that all changed as I began to investigate the Bible using the skills I had developed as a detective. I’ve now come to appreciate the Bible above all other texts (religious or otherwise), largely because the editors of GQ are wrong:

The Bible’s not racist: The Bible doesn’t divide people based on their racial identity.

 Jesus held off granting a healing request to a Gentile women until she cleverly responded to his racist remark by admitting it was correct to characterize the Jews as children and herself as a dog:

 22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."
 23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us."
 24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
 25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"
 26 And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
 27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
 28 Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once. (Matt. 15:22-28 NAU)

 Inerrantist scholar has to trifle that the wording here suggests the Gentiles are not wild dogs, but pet dogs, as if this reduces the stigma!

15:25–28 The woman merely repeats her plea for help but also kneels. Whatever her intention, Matthew will see some kind of worship here. Jesus pursues the question of the distinction between Jews and Gentiles (v. 26). Jews frequently insulted Gentiles by calling them “dogs,”— the wild, homeless scavengers that roamed freely in Palestine. But the diminutive form here (kynarion rather than kyōn) suggests a more affectionate term for domestic pets, particularly since these dogs eat under the children’s table. Even at best, Jesus’ remarks still strike the modern reader as condescending. Jesus apparently wants to demonstrate and stretch this woman’s faith. The “children” must then refer to Israel and the “bread” to the blessings of God on the Jews, particularly through Jesus’ healing ministry. The woman disputes none of Jesus’ terms but argues that, even granting his viewpoint, he should still help her (v. 27). The Gentiles should receive at least residual blessings from God’s favor on the Jews. In fact, the Old Testament from Gen 12:1–3 onwards promised far more than residue. The woman reveals a tenacious faith even as a Gentile (v. 28). Jesus explicitly commends this faith, closely paralleling the narrative of 8:5–13 (as does also his instantaneous healing from a distance). Matthew’s distinctives underline her faith by the addition both of her words in v. 22 and of Jesus’ praise here. “Your request is granted” more literally reads let it be done for you as you wish.

Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.).

Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 244).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

 Evangelical scholar Hagner admits what "dog" really meant:

This word, used first by Jesus and then by the woman, recalls that Gentiles were sometimes likened to the unclean dogs that roamed the streets (cf. 7:6). κυρίων, “masters,” suggests the superiority of Israel as the people of God over the Gentiles.

Hagner, D. A. (2002). Vol. 33B:

Word Biblical Commentary : Matthew 14-28.

Word Biblical Commentary (Page 442). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

 Wallace continues:

Skin color, along with other external human features, are unimportant to God.

But it was apparently important enough to the Jews that black people had to remind Jews to stop focusing on skin color:

 6 Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I had to neglect. (Cant. 1:6 NIV)

 Wallace continues:

According to the Bible, God created humans – all humans – in His image (Genesis 1:27), and unlike the rest of us, God doesn’t judge people based on their outward appearance, but instead “looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

If God doesn't judge by outward appearance, he probably didn't give the command requiring all Gentile men among the Hebrews to get circumcised:

48 "But if a stranger sojourns with you, and celebrates the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near to celebrate it; and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat of it. (Exod. 12:48 NAU)

 Numbers 31:18 says that among the Midianite women captured in war, only the females whose hymens are still intact can be spared the death-penalty:

 17 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.
 18 "But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. (Num. 31:17-18 NAU)

 One has to wonder how Moses and his army men figured out which of the women were virgins and which weren't.  But we can be fairly sure that it involved something a bit more physically intrusive than prayer.

The Apostle Paul wrote that “there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” (Galatians 3:28), and the Apostle Peter said that, “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).

And yet, long after the Great Commission wherein the risen Christ told the original apostles that they were to evangelize the Gentiles (Matthew 28:19-20), we still find them intentionally limiting their efforts solely to the Jews, and allocating the entire Gentile mission field to Paul alone, Galatians 2:9,

When Martin Luther King Jr. – a Bible believing, Baptist minister – argued for the dignity and equality of African Americans, he did so based on the teaching of Scripture. This alone is adequate reason to read the Bible.

Equality in the bible doesn't mean it contains no inequality or racist statements. Only those who believe in bible "inerrancy" would engage in such a broad brushing assumption.

The Bible’s not sexist: Given the cultural setting in which the Bible was written, it’s unfair to claim it is sexist.

 Is that why the bible says girl babies make the mother unclean longer than boy babies?

 2 "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying: 'When a woman gives birth and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days, as in the days of her menstruation she shall be unclean.
 3 'On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
 4 'Then she shall remain in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days; she shall not touch any consecrated thing, nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed.
 5 'But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean for two weeks, as in her menstruation; and she shall remain in the blood of her purification for sixty-six days. (Lev. 12:2-5 NAU)

 Reminder to the apologists:  the text says the mother remains UNCLEAN longer upon birth of a baby girl. It is neither expressed nor implied that the extra time was to allow more bonding between mother and infant.  UNCLEAN is a yucky state of affairs, never something positive.

Wallace continues:

In fact, Jesus’ continuous interaction with women was countercultural. He had female disciples, many of his closest friends were women (i.e. Martha and her sister, Mary), and some of his most profound theological teaching was first shared with women (as in John 11:20-27).

He also talked down to his own mother:

  3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine."
 4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come."
 5 His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." (Jn. 2:3-5 NAU)

And Jesus dishonorably refused to agree with somebody who considered his mother honorable:

  27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed."
 28 But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it." (Lk. 11:27-28 NAU)

 Wallace continues:

It was a woman who first acknowledged the identity of Jesus as the Messiah (the Samaritan woman at the well in the Gospel of John),

 That's in the gospel of John, the latest of the gospels, and you don't have the first fucking clue whether this story is real or just made up by John, in light of conservative NT scholars Craig Evans and Mike Licona and their belief that John puts in Jesus' mouth words he never said.

and it was a woman (Mary) who first discovered the empty tomb.

But the low status of women might be inferred from the fact that the women are never credited by Paul or other apostles in their actual preaching of the resurrection.   Its not about who was first to see the empty tomb, but who Jesus actually appeared to.  And despite Jesus appearing to the women in all 4 gospels, the women are never cited as resurrection witnesses in Paul's infamous list of resurrection witnesses, 1st Corinthians 15:

 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;
 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;
 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. (1 Cor. 15:3-8 NAU)

Wallace continues:

Women played a critical role in the ministry of Jesus, because as Paul said, “there is no male and female” for we are all one in Christ.

 Nope, apostle Paul cited to Eve not being the first to be created, and Eve having been successfully hoodwinked by the devil, as his basis for refusing to allow women to teach in the church:

 9 Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments,
 10 but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.
 11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.
 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.
 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
 15 But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. (1 Tim. 2:9-15 NAU)

 Commentators who pretend Paul only said this because of some local heresy, is total bullshit.  Paul's reasons for prohibiting women from teaching are reasons that would easily be taken as biblical evidence that women are intellectually inferior to men.

Wallace continues:

This teaching about the value, status and identity of women, written two millennia prior to modern feminist movements, once again makes the Bible worth reading.

The Bible’s not boring: The Bible isn’t simply a collection of moralistic stories and proverbial proclamations, and it isn’t uninteresting. It is a description of the world the way it really is.

Yeah right.  A book that mentions talking snakes, a parted Red Sea with a "wall of water" on either side of the escaping Israelites, a talking donkey, angels flying, people walking on water, rising from the dead, flying up to heaven, enjoying telepathy...this book describes the way the world really is?  FUCK YOU.

It presents a comprehensive view of reality, answering the most foundational questions asked by humans for thousands of years.

Correct.  Humans have been asking for thousands of years why evil like rape occurs, and Isaiah 13:13-17 answers:  this is God causing men to rape women:

 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.
 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.  (Isa. 13:13-18)

Wallace continues:

It describes how we got here, why our world is broken, and how it can be fixed. The overarching narrative of the Bible has served to inspire artists of all kinds. Writers such as Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and Dickens, artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Del Greco, and musicians such as Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach found creative inspiration on the pages of Scripture.

It's also been a source of dangerous confusion for many people because it is more ideological than realistic.  You are never allowed to sin, and yet, reality makes it impossible to avoid sinning. So the bible-god intentionally commands the impossible, and yet wants his readers to believe that he shakes the mountains in fiery wrath when sinners sin.  One wonders whether God also sends judgments upon dogs for barking.

If you’re wondering what stirred these great creative geniuses, you might want to read the Bible for yourself.

And if the bible has confused your mind and made you think 'god' is a psycho more interested in himself than his victims, throwing the bible away might be the lesser of two evils.

As I began to investigate the claims of the Bible using my skillset as a cold-case detective, I found that the Gospels varied in content and style, just as I would expect if they were reliable eyewitness accounts of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.

They also contradict each other,  but perhaps as a detective you never worry about witnesses who contradict each other?  You cannot find any non-Christian historian who thinks the variation in the gospel testimony justifies moving beyond the details and concluding that Jesus rose from the dead even if some of the witnesses are in disagreement about other matters.

They weren’t overly “repetitive” nor “self-contradictory,” especially given my experience interviewing thousands of eyewitnesses.

But you've never interviewed eyewitnesses who lived in Palestine in 40 a.d.  Some would argue that your experience is useless for discerning the truth-content of ancient testimony given by people of vastly different cultures.  What are you gonna do next?  Call Matthew to the witness stand?

Cold Case Christianity: Wallace misleads the youth to become eager to violate New Testament principles

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

Cold Case Christianity:
How Role-Playing Can Energize Your Group to Become Case Makers

 Posted: 15 Jun 2018 06:01 AM PDT

 Not long ago, Brett Kunkle, Sean McDowell and I spent several days training students for a Berkeley Missions trip. These trips are fun but challenging. Brett still leads these trips regularly, helping Christian high school students engage young men and women on the UC Berkeley campus. Once there, the students discuss issues related to theism, culture and worldview. These young Christians also interact with thoughtful atheist authors, speakers and student leaders during the trip. The resulting discussions are robust, pointed, and sometimes hostile. In spite of the challenging nature of the excursion, students usually begin this training with a naïve sense of confidence and (I hate to say it) apathy.

Only a Christian apologist would try to put a damper on a child's joy in the Lord.

And if the kids are apathetic toward the goal of the trip, that might tell you they don't have enough of the Holy Spirit to justify trying to "empower" them for the mission field, especially the type of mission field that is most likely to put them in contact with information likely to persuade them to do what many other Christians have done, and give up the faith.

Like many other Christians I meet across the country, our students need to understand the importance of case making before they will ever take a step toward becoming case makers.

That's funny, I thought that the basis for the motive to become a productive Christian was the Holy Spirit.  It's nice to know you are a cessationist, and therefore, you have about as much of a 'relationship' with Jesus as you have with Abraham Lincoln.

As we begin to train each group, we must overcome their apathy and naïve confidence.

Some Christians would argue that the more effort you put into trying to motivate Christians to become more interested in goals you think are spiritual, the less convicting power of the Holy Spirit you actually believe in.  In today's apologetics, the Holy Spirit is nothing but a gratuitous afterthought.  Fuck what the bible says, your spiritual growth will be stunted if you don't learn how to answer atheism.  How can you seriously believe God has any part to play here, if your actions make it seem as if God just sits up there looking down and expecting everybody else to do all the work?  Like I said, "gratuitous afterthought".

If you’ve tried to energize your own church, family or community about “apologetics” (Christian Case Making), you’ve probably experienced something similar.

Wow, the general apathy of today's Christians toward apologetics is so pervasive, even an apologist can complain about it.

In fact, many of you have written to me, expressing this frustration: “How can I encourage my church to understand the need for Christian Case Making?” If you’ve ever found yourself asking a question like this, I have a potential solution: consider role-playing.

That solution is nowhere expressed or implied in the bible.  But prayer is:

 24 "Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. (Mk. 11:24 NAU)

 If Christians pray, yet don't convince their church to start giving a fuck about "case-making", you might consider that God, in his sovereignty, has decided that this is one of the things he doesn't want the Christians in this church or that church to engage in.  But no, you keep on truckin' as if what you have to say applies across the board to everybody all the time.

You also might try a little common sense: If the church is not interested in apologetics, you have no reason to think they are spiritually mature enough to handle getting that close to the devil, in which case it makes more sense to either walk away, or build them up in the faith before trying to turn them into spiritual lights.

In 1st Corinthians 12 Paul insisted that not everybody has the same spiritual gifts:

 27 Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.
 28 And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.
 29 All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they?
 30 All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they?
 31 But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way.
 (1 Cor. 12:27-31 NAU)

 Paul admitted elsewhere that while he has the ideological goal of others being like him in their actions and life-choices, he also knows that this is unrealistic because not everybody has the same gifts.  Notice what he says about the goodness of men remaining single, but the stupidity of expecting this of every man:

 5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
 6 But this I say by way of concession, not of command.
 7 Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. (1 Cor. 7:5-7 NAU)

Yet Wallace is so stuck on his "case-making" bells and whistles, he leaves no room for the obvious biblical truth that not everybody has the gift of teaching, and certainly not "youths" (!?)...and of course "teaching" is precisely what Wallace is having these kids doing when they try to 'answer' atheists and bible skeptics. 

Wallace is so focused on his goal of selling Jesus in Wallace-style that he has completely forgotten that there are probably millions of Christians he is speaking who are not and never will be fit to hold the office of a teacher.

And that's to say nothing of the fact that he is asking youngsters to be "teachers", when in fact not only is there no biblical precedent for this, but the biblical precedent warns even adults that most of them should not consider becoming teachers:

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. (Jas. 3:1 NAU)

Other biblical criteria for teachers necessarily imply the teacher is not a youth but well-seasoned by experience to handle the crap that normally comes with being a teacher:

 23 But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.
 24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,
 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.    (2 Tim. 2:23-26 NAU)

First, given Wallace's insanely obstinate stance that Christianity is true and atheism false, we might very well force Wallace to take the position that he believes atheism and all of its challenges to theism constitute "foolish and ignorant speculations" which Paul said to avoid (v. 23).  And indeed, other parts of the bible force Wallace to view atheism as not merely wrong, but foolish (Psalm 14:1) and thus, the New Testament, in telling Wallace to stay away from foolish and ignorant speculations, is telling him to stay away from atheism.

Second, the teacher cannot be "quarrelsome" (v. 24), yet I would imagine that any school-aged child who really liked apologetics, would likely harbor such desire because it gives them a way to vent their sinful lust to argue, a lust they wish to indulge merely because they get off on being contentious with others.

Many kids and teens are attention-whores, and Wallace runs the risk that many of the youth in his audiences will look upon their bible and faith as an excuse to draw attention to themselves, as indeed happens to most apologists, including Wallace himself, when in fact the alleged goal is to transfer focus off of oneself and onto Jesus.  Wallace's trying to turn kids into spiritual lights is like trying to promote a teenager to the position of overseer.  He is about as pathetic as the 18 year old Mormon missionaries who call themselves "Elder" so-and-so.  Elder?  Really?


Paul also presumes folly in the young when he says young widows are not to be placed on the church's charity list until they are old, because, Paul presumes, they will more than likely give in to their animal instincts and end up wanting to get married again, or gossiping again:

 11 But refuse to put younger widows on the list, for when they feel sensual desires in disregard of Christ, they want to get married,
 12 thus incurring condemnation, because they have set aside their previous pledge.
 13 At the same time they also learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention.
 14 Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach;
 15 for some have already turned aside to follow Satan. (1 Tim. 5:11-15 NAU)

It is clear that Wallace doesn't give two shits about this biblical precedent; if you wanted your 3 year old to learn apologetics, Wallace would probably write a book on it and then tour the U.S. giving lectures on how important it is to buy his books and turn toddlers into spiritual warriors.  Doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, most of the crap Wallace teaches also doesn't make sense (as can be presumed from his carefully efforts to avoid debating me and avoid responding to my challenges and indeed to any challenges from other informed bible critics), but that doesn't slow him down in the least from being utterly obsessed with selling, selling, selling.  He is nothing but a 1950's Jehovah Witness with a bullhorn on his car.  If you wish to make money selling Jesus, advertise, advertise, advertise.

As Christ followers, we typically surround ourselves with other like-minded believers.

Which is the reason you and Christian "heretics" are so difficult to dissuade, you purposefully create a happy social bubble that makes it nearly impossible for truths you don't agree with, to significantly impact your life (to be fair, Wallace is into apologetics so he is less inclined to say inside his happy Christian bubble than most Christians).  I suppose that if I surrounded myself only with other atheist bible critics, I would create a happy bubble around myself, but I can afford to be more objective than Christians can.

In the comfortable worlds we inhabit and create for ourselves, we seldom encounter people who challenge us or make us uncomfortable.

That can only be a good thing in the bible, since it is precisely the outsider's challenging and making you uncomfortable that leads straight to your apostasy or heresy.   Wallace doesn't consider that some Christians are likely so fragile in the faith that they aren't ready to join god's "army".

Many of us don’t even understand the extent to which our Christian beliefs are being challenged by the increasingly antagonistic culture. We’ve insolated (sic) ourselves to the point of apathy.

That might give you a clue, Wallace: the only reason you have an apathetic Christian demographic to market your materials to in the first place, is because those people either lack salvation, or are otherwise not intended by God to be spiritual soldiers. 

Because we’re never challenged, we fail to see the need to study.

Blame it on the Holy Spirit, since he is allegedly capable of making even unbelievers do what he wants (Ezra 1:1), so he has no excuse for not exerting the same magically coercive telepathy on his own followers.

Most of us don’t start thinking about dinner until we get hungry.

Telling you that most of your readers have more in common with elementary school kids than they have with city planners.  School kids?  Not the kind of people that should be teaching atheists...the devil's most clever disciples.

We don’t start shopping for a car until our current car isn’t working.

Ditto.

Similarly, most Christians don’t recognize the need for Case Making until they’ve been challenged to make a case.

But you haven't shown biblical justification for saying ALL Christians need to be case-makers.  Apologetics puts you in contact with some very smart people who have a track record of successfully deconverting Christians.  You are rather stupid if you think you aren't putting kids in spiritual danger by blindly assuming its always good for them to do the work that not even most adult teachers are prepared to do.

That’s why role-playing is so effective. Last night, as in most of our prior training sessions, we began with some acting. We spent an hour challenging the students as though we were non-believers. We did our best to portray the opposition with clarity and fairness, but we pressed our students as much as possible. We presented the arguments we typically encounter when talking with atheists (or held ourselves when we were non-believers).

They'd be better prepared for real-world encounters if you have them try to handle a real atheist or bible critic.  If you are going to ignore biblical restrictions, then go for gold.

At first, it didn’t take much effort to stump the group or frustrate them with our atheistic objections. Within minutes, the students realized they were unable to defend what they believed as Christians. After an hour, their frustration was palpable. They were irritated with their inability to defend what they believed, and while this incompetence made them uncomfortable, it served our purposes perfectly. Suddenly, Christian Case Making became important to these students; they understood their inability and the magnitude of the challenge.

Probably because they were youthful, and youths have more tendency to want to win an argument for reasons other than long-term spiritual good.  Impressing one's cohorts with flashes of intellectual brilliance are also among the reasons many Christian  youths would wish to become involves in apologetics.   

Once again, the bible says atheism is foolish (Psalm 14:1), and the Christian teacher is to avoid foolish subjects (2nd Timothy 2:23 ff, supra).  I find it disturbing, to say the least, that Wallace can forge ahead with his new marketing scheme, while being so blissfully ignorant of (or apathetic toward) the New Testament restrictions on just who is supposed to be a teacher.

When I am asked to do longer, multi-session training with a group, I sometimes begin without revealing my Christian identity at all. I’ll introduce myself as the old atheist I used to be. Without revealing who I am today, I’ll spend an hour demonstrating the defensive shortcomings of the group.

Hard to believe that the Holy Spirit, whom you credit as the reason you have joy in the Lord, would approve of you misleading others about what you really believe.  YOU might play games, but the Holy Spirit likely doesn't.

When I finally reveal I’m a Christian, the group is typically relieved to find out I am on their side. If my time with a group is much shorter, I’ll still find a way to “role-play” the position of those who oppose the Christian view. If nothing else, I’ll simply provide a series of quotes (or even a short video) demonstrating the strength of the opposition.

If you want to turn them into spiritual giants, have them meet with me or some other bible critic who specializes in answering apologists.   I'll start them off on why it makes no sense to say that causing men to rape women can possibly be "loving".  Isaiah 13, Hosea 13.  Either the god of the bible has a history of actions utterly inconsistent with "love", or the definition of "love" becomes intolerably and uselessly malleable.

If we are supposed to believe that God "loves" the women that he causes other men to rape, that is a horrifically ignorant and desperate view that that nobody finds the least bit compelling...except Christian apologists whose solitary goal in life is to transform ancient tribal barbarian philosophy from the OT prophets, into something more acceptable to modern western notions of justice and common sense.

In other words, I begin by creating a hunger for the meal we are about to eat.

In other words, like a salesman, you create a problem for which your materials, on sale now,  provide a solution.  Standard operating procedure for any car salesman.

I try to demonstrate the urgency of the questions so the answers will be embraced more eagerly.

Very sad that an alleged "bible-believer" like you causes youth to eagerly involve themselves in answering atheism, when your own NT directly forbids any Christian from becoming involved in such "foolish speculations".  You need to check yourself, Wallace, you are missing the forest for the trees.

If you’re a “One Dollar Apologist” and you’re struggling to introduce Christian Case Making to your Christian brothers and sisters, consider the importance of role playing. If nothing else, present the opposing case prior to making the case for Christianity. When you demonstrate the strength of the challenge, people are far more willing to strengthen their ability to respond.

But whatever you do, don't trust in the power of the Holy Spirit nor in the power of prayer.  No, you are hopelessly stuck in mire unless and until you purchase Wallace's materials. Maybe he can explain how the bible alone can be sufficient for faith and practice, yet also be insufficient until it is supplemented by commentaries written by sinful men far less inspired than the biblical authors.