Friday, January 11, 2013

If Atheism Was True Gandhi And Hitler Would Be Morally Equal

The moral question is one of the major reasons why people reject atheism and rightly so. It does not easily fit into my series of "If atheism was true" posts because it does not lead to a logical impossibility for atheism. We can assert that there is nothing in the moral realm beyond what our brain has constructed. Then morality would not be immaterial. It would reduce to brain chemistry. Just neurons firing in a complex manner. We don't understand all the science that makes it work but we can suppose that if you did you would understand all of morality.

The trouble with that is not that it is illogical but that it is mad.  Here is GK Chesterton:
If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours.
What materialism does is it says good and bad are an illusion. When we feel something is morally good it is just a statement about which neurons fire in our brain in response to this stimulus. Same when we feel something is morally evil. But when you understand good and evil that way then they lose their meaning. There is nothing inherently good or evil about a certain configuration of a neural network. We connect moral feelings of goodness with some sort of absolute goodness. If the pure materialist is right then our moral feelings have a cause that has nothing to do with morality. In fact, the cause must be that feeling that way about things like that somehow created a survival advantage for our evolutionary ancestors.

So moral obligations disappear. What we have is moral feelings. They are selfish. If I do good then I feel good. I might risk my life to save yours. But I didn't do it to save you. I did it because evolution has programmed my brain to feel an obligation to do it. I would feel bad if I let you die. I don't want to feel bad so I saved you. But it is not even selfish. All choices are based on brain chemistry. Even the choice to selfishly follow my own feelings is reducible to brain chemistry. It is like the earth going around the sun. It is just following the laws of science and there is no choice happening moral or otherwise.

There is a certain implausibility of evolution creating moral impulses that developed over thousands of years into the complex history of human ethics that we have seen. But that is answered by faith in science. Science will find a more plausible explanation. Like many answers based on faith it is unfalsifiable, a bit like the madman's theory of a conspiracy against him. Still true beleivers find it convincing.

The real problem comes when you look at the conclusions you arrive at or rather are unable to arrive at. You can't say that another person's action is immoral. When you first say that it sounds OK. It is the ultimate in non-judgmental thinking. But when you start to go through some examples almost nobody believes it. Hitler is the classic one. Do we have any basis for judging Hitler's actions to be immoral? But there are more. If a Muslim country chooses to educate boys and not girls is that just fine or is that wrong? What about a racist culture? What about a rape culture? Do you really want to say that if a society is OK with something then it is OK.

Even if society is not OK with it. So what? If a country is ruled by a dictatorship and people struggle for a long time at tremendous cost to try and bring freedom and democracy then what do we say? The dictator is doing what he thinks is good for the country. The rebels are doing what they think is good. But true goodness does not exist. We might cheer one side or the other but that is just our minds reacting to stimulus. We are imposing our cultural thinking on another culture. We need to learn to stop judging.

This has the effect of making morality completely arbitrary. What will happen in that case is the state will step in and declare morals and impose them by force. People don't grasp the problem. They really think a state-imposed morality would be pretty reasonable. We are a few years removed from Nazism and Stalinism. People forget. People assume humanity has gotten better and we are no longer capable of such evil (even as they deny there is such a thing as better or evil).

You can see how this can cost us everything but our reason. Does that make it less likely to be true? If we can't prove conclusively that morality exists outside the brain exists then should we not assume the simplest theory that explains the data? It depends on what you count as data. Ultimately we get data from our senses. We see, we hear, we touch, we taste, and we smell. If those senses did not exist we would not know about the physical world. In fact, we cannot rationally prove the physical world exists without assuming something about the reliability of our senses.

So what about the moral world? Do we have a moral sense that tells us something about moral realities? If you think of it that way then materialism does not explain the data. We sense that going into a school and killing 20 children is wrong. If the gunman's neural network didn't register it as wrong that does not matter. The wrongness is bigger than his brain. Can we sense that just as plainly as we can sense the sun in the sky? If we have to assume our physical senses are reliable is it such a big stretch to assume our moral senses are reliable?

The best evidence that this is false is atheists themselves. They cannot live it. They cannot get rid of references to good and evil. The Weinberg quote is just one example. Atheists often get morally outraged at Christians. Sometimes they are right to be outraged. Christians do outrageously evil things. The problem is that materialism denies a moral standard to appeal to. Not just a moral standard. When you talk about human society getting better about making progress. Guess what? That assumes a standard by which to measure the goodness of a society.

Sometimes atheists import Christian standards. The might say "obviously preventing the loss of human life is most important." Who says? It was not obvious to the Rwandan Hutus who decided to kill all the Tutsis. The point is that atheists will try and smuggle in some moral principle and reason from there. The trouble is that all moral principles have their roots in moral feelings or divine revelation. If you deny one and claim the other does not indicate actual good or evil then your reasoning has no starting point.

36 comments:

  1. You're wrong, but thanks for playing.

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  2. Hi Brian,

    You did a little bit better on another atheist/morality post here:

    http://ephesians4-15.blogspot.ca/2011/06/atheists-and-morality.html

    Even then you didn't really show what I said was wrong. You just attacked theism. But thanks for reminding me of that post/discussion. The conversation I was thinking of was with Brian63 and not with you though.

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    1. A 3+ year reply later...

      If some forms of Christianity are true, both Gandhi and Hitler are in hell in everlasting torment (or, even worse, Hitler sincerely believed in Jesus' salvation and is in heaven).

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  3. if christianity is true Hitler could be in Heaven while Ghandi burned in Hell

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    1. It is possible but that is not the point. Christianity and really any other moral system you can think of will say Hitler is evil and Gandhi is good. Now where you go from there is another matter. Christianity has the concept of grace that means heaven and hell are not just determined by who is objectively, visibly good. That is different from saying the concept of objective goodness does not exist.

      Again, for an atheist to deny heaven and hell and also to deny any objective moral standard makes it very strange for them to say Christianity has this wrong. Any intuition about who deserves heaven or hell should really be dismissed as deluded nonsense. But it does not feel like deluded nonsense. It feels like you have a solid sense of what should and should not be.

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  4. This is meaningless to anyone who knows that humanity defines morality. Only those you believe God defines morality will find this convincing. Just so you know, you're preaching to the choir.

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    1. It strikes me as irrational to make statement like that. Humanity defines morality? So humanity can redefine morality any way it likes? Start with that question. It does not seem meaningless at all. I get that atheists don't like where it goes from there but that does not make it meaningless.

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    2. Not anyway way they like, in the way that makes sense. Humanity defining murder as awesome would be irrational because then there would be no humanity.

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    3. So reason limits how we can define morality? But what is reasonable to you might not be reasonable to me.

      Murder is a good example. Nobody says it is OK to kill anybody but we have seen many say it is OK to kill some people. It might be reasonable to an Arab to kill Jews. It might be reasonable to a strong Republican to kill Obama. Who is to say their reasoning is wrong?

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    4. I am. My culture and society are. Hopefully you are.

      (Can't you see how pointing out that some disagree on morality hurts your point, not mine?)

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    5. I am not sure what my point is. Your point is that morality being defined by humanity cannot be redefined arbitrarily. That there is some limit. Now you say the limit is set by the culture or society. There are problems there to. What if the culture of the day says it is OK to lynch blacks? Does that make it OK? That is to ask whether a culture or society can redefine morality arbitrarily or is there some limit even on that?

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  5. No need for a hypothetical. The culture of yesterday said it was okay to enslave blacks (and too a lesser degree lynch blacks) and it was okay. I don't know what it was like back then, but it's clear it wasn't universal. Some whites didn't feel it was okay, hence the underground railroad and the like. It's certainly not okay by our standards and I'd say that is an improvement.

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    1. That gives the culture a lot of power. If soldiers say everyone is raping and stealing and generally terrorizing a population then that makes it OK for them to do it as well? If my teenager says everyone is doing drugs that makes it OK for him?

      How many people in the culture have to be OK with it before it becomes OK? How can we tell when that level has been reached? I am reminded of a poll taken recently where most people declared themselves to be pro-life yet most also said Roe v Wade was good and should remain law. How can public opinion be the determiner of right and wrong when their answers sway so wildly based on how you phrase the question?

      Lastly, you say society has improved. Improved just in your mind or has it improved next to some absolute scale? If someone else said this was not an improvement would their opinion be just as valid or would they be wrong and you would be right?

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    2. I’m not saying individuals should do whatever they want and I’m not saying that might makes right. I’m pointing out how things were and how things are.

      When social animals group they tend to behave in a mutually benefial way and we (at least secular people) call the code of conduct that emerges our morality. I see the improvement of morality much like humans have improved in other ways. In the old American South, morality was far better than, say, biblical times, but still lacked universal equality. Including that was an improvement.

      I can provide a pragmatic reason for ever moral choice I make. Can you not? If you can’t, then I’m glad you have the bible to guide you, but I have to admit, it still makes me nervous. Biblical morality is only a good choice if you cherry pick the bits that aline with modern morality, as most religious types do, thankfully.

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    3. In the absence of some good to pursue individuals will do whatever and might will make right.

      Humans should behave in a mutually beneficial way. But what is beneficial? Who defines it? You are saying it does not really exist.

      Are all moral changes improvements? Can we move backwards? Again you seem to have notion of an objective morality. That is why it is so hard to accept. Even those who say they don't believe it exists can't seem to think without referencing it.

      Everyone can provide a pragmatic reason for their choices. Hitler, Bin Laden, they all have reasons. Morality is about curbing our reason. Something that can be right when we are wrong.

      Catholics don't cherry pick the scriptures. We have a sacred tradition that tells us what scriptures to focus on.

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  6. What is beneficial? Really? If you are trapped under a tree, helping you would benefit you, and I would do so as long as by doing so I didn't harm myself or someone else more than it would help you. You know what beneficial means. Think of "whats right" as what is beneficial to myself and my family first and others second; Think of "what wrong" as what is harmful to myself and family first and others second; and you will have a sense of my morality without God.

    Blindly outsourcing your morality to the church requires a lot of trust. If you are not doing so blindly, then you are applying your own morality much as I do to inform what aspects of the church to follow. You might not cherry pick the scriptures, but your church does.

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    1. I don't have trouble sensing your moral feelings. We all have them. But do they point to something bigger or are they just feelings. I can get over guilt feelings if I know rationally that there is nothing really wrong with something. A heart surgeon can get over the revulsion he feeling in cutting open a man's chest.

      If there really is a moral reality that my feelings detect then I will use my reason differently. I will try and find a moral principle that reflects that truth more accurately than my feeling. Principles are more solid than feelings. A man might feel adultery is wrong most of the time but when he is really tempted he might not feel it as strong. A principle will make it clearer that he is making myself an exception to the rule for no good reason.

      If there was no good but just feelings then the principle of not breaking vows would not be rational. I often feel bad when I break a vow. This time I don't. So what? You can't say the moral principle still valid and my feelings are just clouded right now. When the feeling goes the moral goes.

      That could all be true but it just does not seem possible. Vow breaking is just wrong. Even to write a sentence where I suggest maybe vow breaking is OK and it is just the feeling that is the issue. My mind does not seem able to go there.

      BTW, the church does not cherry pick the scriptures. She follows sacred tradition. She goes back to how prior generations of Christians have read the scriptures. Where does it begin? With Jesus and His apostles. Yes we see the need for God to keep such a process on track. But it is a process that is more rational than cherry picking. Cherry picking implies an ad hoc logical fallacy. That is not the case.

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    2. Not everything Jesus said in the Bible is in line with the stereotypical good guy Jesus is seen as. I assumed the Catholic Church picked those bits out, sorry if I was mistaken, I just don't see how they can have an idealized view of him if they didn't.

      Replace "vow" with law and priciple with "rule" and you have explained why societies enforce common morality.

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    3. I have actually heard people argue that Jesus was never nice. I don't know if that is quite true but there are many examples of him being offensive. The turning over of the tables in the temple is the one people cite but there was a lot more. Christian tradition contemplates the full radical nature of Jesus' teaching. I don't think they pick out the nice bits at all. He could not be God if He fit into our categories of niceness.

      Replace "vow" with law and priciple with "rule" and you have explained why societies enforce common morality.

      Interesting. Then it also explains why such enforcement implies a belief in the existence of transcendent moral principles. Really a law is either "I am imposing my will on you because I have power over you" or a law is "This is right and good even when the individual involved does not think so." The first would be might makes right. The second is a pursuit of good that goes beyond the human mind or any collection of human minds. If you deny the existence of the second and you say the first is wrong (contradicting yourself of course) then where is the basis for society to enforce laws?

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  7. You can sub "moral" for "nice" in those comments about Jesus just fine.

    "He could not be God if He fit into our categories of niceness." Statements like this make me glad I'm an atheist. :-)

    The enforcement in no way implies a belief in transcendent moral principles, just commonly agreed upon principles and principles that protect the citizens of the government. The laws and rules of government mostly serve the same purpose as the commandments of the bible except that laws have definite real consequences while commandments have speculative consequences.

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  8. Why would that scare you? Do you think your sense of morality is the ultimate standard? If Jesus is the ultimate standard shouldn't His morality be just so much greater than yours that it blows your mind? It blew the mind of the Pharisees and they were way more moral than us in many ways.

    The enforcement in no way implies a belief in transcendent moral principles, just commonly agreed upon principles and principles that protect the citizens of the government.

    Agreed on here just means power. We have enough agreement to enact and therefore we can use our power to impose these ideas on others. Might makes right. We don't really need agreement. Governments can act without agreement all the time. Power is really the key.

    Unless of course we see these principles as supporting the common good. But that means they are not just right for me but right for all. If I think wife beating is just wrong for me I won't want it to be illegal. I want it to be illegal because it is wrong for anyone even if they are raised in a culture that accepts it.

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    1. It scares me because you follow a guy who your holy book says is currently waiting "for his enemies to be made his footstool," and since I disagree with you and am an infidel, you could one day see me as your enemy.

      Where do you suppose God gets his morality? Is it arbitrary? Does he have no reason for what is good and evil? If it's simply his nature, why can't it be ours and cut out the middle deity?

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    2. It scares me because you follow a guy who your holy book says is currently waiting "for his enemies to be made his footstool," and since I disagree with you and am an infidel, you could one day see me as your enemy.

      I don't see you as an enemy. I pray that you open your heart to the grace of God in whatever form you are willing to receive it. I actually have more hope for serious atheists then for unserious Catholics (I know I should hope for everyone). As long as you are contemplating the big questions in life and not just being a God-hater. God is merciful but he does want you to act on what is right as best you see it.

      Remember the enemies of Christ are not flesh and blood but spiritual powers (Eph 6). So that verse is not referring to people but Satan and the forces of darkness.

      Where do you suppose God gets his morality? Is it arbitrary? Does he have no reason for what is good and evil? If it's simply his nature, why can't it be ours and cut out the middle deity?

      God is the essence of all being. It does not make sense to talk about him getting anything from anywhere. He is.

      Morality can be our nature. We have to choose it. God did not make us slaves. He made us free. Free to reject what is good and true and beautiful. He won't compel you with force or even with a logical argument. He will always leave you the choice between life and death, heaven and hell, good and evil.

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    3. Uh huh.

      Well, glad we aren't enemies at least. :-)

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    4. Thanks so much for the conversation. God bless you!

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  9. I have read the first paragraph and see no reason to go on, lets see.
    First assertion is wrong, people don't leave religion because they can't see the world beyond their emotions towards spiritual stuff. Proof? You don't have anything but faith to validate your belief.
    Morality is not only in our brain, it is in it on relation to the perceptible universe around us, it is all about logic really, what is more efficient? Kill someone or not? Well, firstly, unless you got really fucked in your life, you wont feel like doing it, second, you will recognise this being that is another person and that is more useful to let it exist than the opposite, among other things of course, but that is sufficient.
    Oh wow, so much bullshit..."morality would not be immaterial"...wtf is this and that entire last phrase in the first paragraph?

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    1. Are you sure you actually read the first paragraph? You say the first assertion is wrong. Here it is:

      The moral question is one of the major reasons why people reject atheism and rightly so

      Then you start talking about why people leave religion. The first assertion does not address why people leave religion. It addresses why people stay or leave atheism to join a religion.

      I am not sure where you get your reason for not killing someone. You don't have the impulse to kill very often. This is good. But if an when you do have it what help would your morality be in preventing you from doing that? Maybe you could clarify.

      What I meant by "morality would not be immaterial" is that believing in morality almost contradicts the rejection of all immaterial entities. Not just rejecting God but also things like virtue or beauty as real but immaterial entities that exist apart from man. If you reject all those then you can still have some form of morality but it is limited because it is a feature of the brain and not a feature of the cosmos. I am sorry of that was unclear.

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  10. ...Yes, i said the first assertion is wrong and gave my answer, i don't understand where you are lost at...it may be not necessarily faith, but is always emotional in nature, for example, some doctor who are atheists become religious for not been able to deal with their patients feelings while dying, that is why people keep or become religious, emotion, and emotion does not mean something is truth.
    I get my reason for not killing people and not do other improper stuff from intelligence, the example i gave is valid for EVERYONE.
    When i have improper emotions i just restrain myself...are you trolling me?...this is so simple that i feel like you are asking me how do i breathe...what is better to improve life, fighting or cooperation? Besides, it is illegal killing someone, but that is minor, the real reason is to progress in society, i mean, other people could care for that person, he may be useful in the future...several reasons why not to kill someone even though you feel like it.
    By your definition, i am not a "materialist", and the large majority of atheists are not either.
    In the current state of the universe, materia and energy seem to be the same thing, just at different values and form.
    And by the way, you just gave one of the reasons why the concept of god should be rejected, beauty and other feeling like it exist ONLY in our minds, they relate to how we individually see the universe but are not universal, beauty and god are not in the same level, beauty is to love, as god(s) is to unicorn.

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    1. i don't understand where you are lost at...it may be not necessarily faith, but is always emotional in nature, for example, some doctor who are atheists become religious for not been able to deal with their patients feelings while dying, that is why people keep or become religious, emotion, and emotion does not mean something is truth.

      Emotion? Is that true with everyone? How many conversion stories have you read? I have read a lot where an atheist has simply come across a more intellectually sophisticated and satisfying form of Christianity than he thought possible. Thomas Merton's story told in Seven Story Mountain would be a good example. Emotion always plays some role and that is proper.

      Not sure about the doctors you refer to. Would they accept you characterization of their conversion? I doubt it. So how do you know it is that simple? How do you know the emotion was not just one part of it. In some ways it is a bit like complaining that people get married because of emotion. They do and they don't. But what is the right amount of emotion versus rational scrutiny? Is it the same for everyone?

      I get my reason for not killing people and not do other improper stuff from intelligence, the example i gave is valid for EVERYONE.
      What you said is valid for everyone who agrees with you. What if they don't? What if they find your arguments unconvincing? This is a problem with all rational arguments. People disagree and often reason cannot bring them back together.

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    2. When i have improper emotions i just restrain myself...are you trolling me?...this is so simple that i feel like you are asking me how do i breathe...what is better to improve life, fighting or cooperation? Besides, it is illegal killing someone, but that is minor, the real reason is to progress in society, i mean, other people could care for that person, he may be useful in the future...several reasons why not to kill someone even though you feel like it.
      That still sounds like a mess of half arguments that can easily be swept aside if you have a real temptation to kill. That is when your mind would be consumed with anger. It will effect your thinking.

      By your definition, i am not a "materialist", and the large majority of atheists are not either.
      In the current state of the universe, materia and energy seem to be the same thing, just at different values and form.
      And by the way, you just gave one of the reasons why the concept of god should be rejected, beauty and other feeling like it exist ONLY in our minds, they relate to how we individually see the universe but are not universal, beauty and god are not in the same level, beauty is to love, as god(s) is to unicorn.


      So you say you are not a materialist. So what non-material thing do you believe in? You say "beauty and other feeling like it exist ONLY in our minds" so they are not non-material? They are a property of the chemical makeup of our brain? That is the materialist position. If you are really not a materialist then what do you think exists apart from the material world including the material of our human minds?

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    3. Almost everyone, apart from emotion there is what could be called "supernatural phenomena", with we normal people
      call going crazy.

      It is not about agreeing with me, it is about perceiving the most constructive set of actions to develop yourself
      in a society, if someone tell me a more efficient way i will accept it, if they don't i will do my best to
      change the mind of this person or disrupt such actions. It is entirely possible that reason can not change
      a person's view, in that case, the case should be properly studded and proper action must be taken, is this person
      insane, drugged, misinformed, randomly violent, disturbed, among other possibilities, if the person is within the
      characterization that i just cited, all you can do is stop them somehow. If the people in two sides of a conflict
      disagree and reason cannot bring them together, i see 2 possibilitees, let them destroy eachother or remove the
      unreasonable parts.

      There is no mess to the argumentos and they are complete by themselves, if someone swept them aside for temptation
      they are just letting themselves be controlled by petty need to satisfy improper emotions, i understand that anger
      and other emotions can affect your thinking, a person must be responsible for one's own emotions and control such
      feelings before and after they appear, the ones that can't are mentally challenged and will be removed from
      society.

      "So what non-material thing do you believe in?" What does this even mean? I think of electricity and the other
      huge amount of things that are not material, it is not about believing, it is about perceiving and understanding.
      Emotions are non-material things that exist within a material construct, our brain.
      Alot of things exist apart from the material world that is not perceptible with our brains, our eyes for example,
      while i am looking at my monitor screen, even though i have perfect sight by human standards, i can see so little,
      there are an incalculable numbers of things that i can't see, material and non-material, but some machines can.

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  11. Almost everyone, apart from emotion there is what could be called "supernatural phenomena", with we normal people call going crazy.

    So people who believe in something supernatural are not normal? In fact they are crazy? Based on what? You are labeling the vast majority of mankind as crazy.

    It is not about agreeing with me, it is about perceiving the most constructive set of actions to develop yourself in a society, if someone tell me a more efficient way i will accept it, if they don't i will do my best to change the mind of this person or disrupt such actions. It is entirely possible that reason can not change a person's view, in that case, the case should be properly studded and proper action must be taken, is this person insane, drugged, misinformed, randomly violent, disturbed, among other possibilities,

    The biggest cause of disagreement is not any of the things you are assuming. Typically it is a different set of assumption stemming from a different view of the world. The trouble is some world views do allow for immoral acts like murder. You need some way to say your world view is better than theirs. But even the notion of "better" actually comes from your world view.

    Reason needs some basis. You talk about "the most constructive set of actions to develop yourself." Where does that come from? What precisely does that means? What happens if you and I don't agree on what that means? Who decides who is right?

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  12. Well, i use the word "crazy" loosely, and yes, i mean they are not normal, exactly what's wrong with each and everyone of them i don't know, it seems to vary between several kinds of disconnections with reality through stupidity and/or insanity mostly conditioned while growing up and in some very rare cases, born with.

    What people call spiritual, faith based in the religious context of the word and concepts of god(s) do not meet any criteria compatible with reality external to unrestrained human mind, they all believe in something that is outside the human mind the same way they believe in emotions, yet, such only exists in our minds and can only affect our actions, it is extremely dangerous, and yes, it is not normal.

    I did not say the biggest causes for disagreement were those, i just cited a few ramdomly.

    My reason is logic, research it, you nor i choose what logic is, it is universal.

    I will read this "The Seven Storey Mountain" you mentioned this week.

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    1. It would be awesome if you read that book.

      I does seem to me that you are making yourself the definition of normal. You think emotions, like love, only exist in the human mind. Many people don't think so. Many think love is the highest good. That we should order our whole lives around loving more people more deeply. That it makes sense to die for your beloved because love is more than just your brain.

      Now you might not agree. You might fall in love and tell your girlfriend that you love her but what you would mean by that is that she has a very powerful and positive impact on your brain chemistry. That the mystical concept of love described by the poets does not really exist.

      That is one way to approach life but what about it makes it normal. Logic? I don't see it. There is no argument that proves love does not exist. You think it is the belief that best fits the evidence. I get that. But you have discounted almost all emotional data. Not everyone will do that. You have dismissed the religious thinking of most of humanity. You may, but don't set that as the norm for everyone else.

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  13. You're arguing based on premises you haven't even defined.
    Randy, you argue based on the premise of what is known as "Divine Command" theory, which states that the will of God is the ultimate good, and thus is right.
    That theory has been systematically and categorically debunked in that it contains a false premise: That God must be in existence. It is a cyclical argument, in that it implies the CONCLUSION that God is right and religion is right based on the PREMISE that God exists and religion is inspired by Him. I am religious myself, but I must acknowledge the central point of faith: It cannot, nor should it ever be, proven, justified, argued, or debated. Just as I hold to my faith and you to yours based not upon empirical evidence but upon our own choice, we must also acknowledge that
    Atheists ARE correct in terms of their argument. Morality is NOT created by faith. This is simply a fact of life, refusing to accept it cheapens your argument.

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  14. There are 2 separate questions here. One is whether morality is real or it is an illusion. If you conclude morality is real then the next question is how can we know it? Divine command theory addresses the second question. I am talking about the first. Is it plausible to believe there is no such thing as morality? Can a guy like Hitler come along and change what is right and what is wrong? Or is there a standard out there that says killing Jews is wrong no matter how dominant those who deny it have become?

    Once you say such a standard exists you can use that fact to argue that God or at least something like God exists. That would not be circular.

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