Does morality exist?

[Charlemagne_II]

AntiTheist

*Again, I’m not the one making the **extraordinary claim **here. The idea that something is “better” than something else logically requires a standard by which it can be deemed “better.” *

What is extraordinary about my claim? If you are going to take the view that nothing is “better” than anything else, I think that’s rather extraordinary as it flies in the face of common sense.

So Jesus’ morality is reasonable because you say so. Got it.

It is reasonable because the gospel of love is reasonable. If you find the gospel of love unreasonable, say so and then prove your position.

*You seriously think that the way that you feel emotionally is a sensible basis for deciding facts about the external world? *

That’s not what I said. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. A reasonable position might well be expected to be accompanied by a warm and fuzzy feeling. Where is the gospel of love emphasized in the Hindu system?

Millions of people used to argue that slavery was morally right. Are you going to tell me that millions of people can’t be wrong, so slavery must be right after all? Or are you saying that all those people could have been perceiving the world incorrectly? Oh, say it ain’t so!

I don’t think so. I think only the slave owners needed to argue that it morally right. Even they knew it wasn’t, as Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner, admitted. George Washington also acknowledged the immorality of it and in his will ordered the release of all his slaves upon his death. Today hardly anyone argues for slavery as a moral right. Doesn’t that weigh in favor of the objective evil of slavery.

The number of people advocating a position, it’s true, is not the bottom line. But it should give pause to consider. By your own logic as an atheist, if I’m not mistaken, you would say that evolution is an objective fact, and that the objectivity of that fact is attested to by the vast majority of the scientific community. Now doesn’t that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The problem in making a case for morality as a purely subjective mental state rather than as an objective mental state that views the rightness or wrongness of human conduct, is that such a position opens the door to moral chaos and political anarchy. When you cannot build a moral consensus on the rightness or wrongness of an act, tragedy will follow. We see that in the 50 million executions of unborn human beings on the presumption that the view of pro-choice is as good as the view of pro-life.

Even our own Constitution guarantees the right to life. To say that unborn life is not entitled to this protection is wrong on the face of it. The unborn child is not a subjective “idea” that can be conveniently disposed of as disagreeable, but is an objective being seeking passage from the inner birth canal into the outer world.

It is a sign of the moral madness of our times that every objective moral position is turned upside down by the subjectivists on the ground that there is no reasonable claim to universal truths in the realm of morals.

But we might well see the subjectivist allow an exception to the rule that there is no objective morality. He might allow that it is absolutely and therefore objectively wrong for a man to kill an abortionist in order to save the lives of hundred, perhaps even thousands, of unborn children.

Yet even some atheists can see their way through that fallacy, as atheist Chester Dolan in his *Religion on Trial *has agreed that the Catholic Church is right on abortion

 

[AntiTheist]

What is extraordinary about my claim?

I thought I did a tolerably good job of explaining my position, but I’ll do so again in more detail.

Logically, it makes no sense to say that one thing is good or better than another unless you have a standard by which you are measuring “good” or “better.” It’s ridiculous to say that a pie is “good,” unless you have a specific standard in mind: for example, providng nutrition to a human being or being pleasing to my tastebuds. By that standard, a pie is indeed good. But if the standard were “Communicating with others,” then a pie would be “bad.” And something like a computer or a phone would be deemed “better” than the pie. But again, without a standard, the statement “A pie is good” or “A pie is better than a computer” is just nonsense.

Similarly, when you make the statement that one action is good or bad – like, for example, claiming that “murder is bad” – you need a standard. I’m claiming that the standard is human value judgments, something that we know exists. Most people value living in a society where murder is not allowed, and most people do not value murdering others, so most people would make the claim that “murder is bad.” I’m saying that that claim has no truth value – it is not true or false, but instead merely reflects the values of the person making the statement (i.e. it reveals the standard by which he judges something “good” or “bad”).

I can imagine a person who values murder, though, and I’m saying that nothing outside of human value judgments makes his value “bad.” The rest of us can make the value judgment that his values are bad, but those are still entirely subjective value judgments.

Are you with me so far?

Others – like you – claim that I am wrong and that murder is bad regardless of what anyone thinks, or that giving to the poor is good regardless of what anyone thinks. Well, again, logically you need a standard by which to claim that, a standard outside of human value judgments.

Since you have to go outside of human value judgments, the only option you’re left with is supernatural value judgments (the values of, for example, a god).

I claim that the standard is something that exists and that we see operating in the world all the time and that we have plenty of evidence for; you claim that the standard is something magical that no on has ever produced any evidence for. You’re the one making the extraordinary claim here.

The burden is on the morality crowd to demonstrate that their claims are true.

That’s about as clearly as I can explain that. Please read what I’ve just written two or three times before responding.

It is reasonable because the gospel of love is reasonable. If you find the gospel of love unreasonable, say so and then prove your position.

No, you’re missing the point. I’m asking what reason you have to think that “love your enemies” is better than “look out for number one” or “don’t eat cows.” What’s the rational argument for prefering Jesus’ morality to some other system of behavior?

You see, you need a standard for saying that Jesus’ moral system is “better.” And either that standard is going to be your own values – which means that I’m right – or the standard is going to be something outside of human value judgments (i.e. a god’s value judgments), which you can’t demonstrate. You’re stuck, either way.

The number of people advocating a position, it’s true, is not the bottom line. But it should give pause to consider. By your own logic as an atheist, if I’m not mistaken, you would say that evolution is an objective fact, and that the objectivity of that fact is attested to by the vast majority of the scientific community. Now doesn’t that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside?

You misunderstand what evidence is. My belief in evolution doesn’t depend on it giving me a “warm, fuzzy feeling” (it doesn’t, by the way), nor does it depend on the number of people who support it. We know that evolution is true because there is a ton of evidence for it, evidence that has gone through a peer-review process in which professionals try to prove each other’s findings wrong and weed out errors. It’s the process that makes the evidence and the conclusions reliable – as reliable as possible, based on the best evidence available at the time. My belief has nothing to do with numbers of people.

EDIT: Oh, and Ender, I have to commend you for keeping the thread focused and for resisting distracting efforts to redefine simple words. I’ve agreed with mostly everything you said, though will you grant that what I mean by “values” is different than “opinion”?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

AntiTheist

*You misunderstand what evidence is. My belief in evolution doesn’t depend on it giving me a “warm, fuzzy feeling” (it doesn’t, by the way), nor does it depend on the number of people who support it. We know that evolution is true because there is a ton of evidence for it, evidence that has gone through a *peer-review process in which professionals try to prove each other’s findings wrong and weed out errors. It’s the process that makes the evidence and the conclusions reliable – as reliable as possible, based on the best evidence available at the time. My belief has nothing to do with numbers of people.

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. “peer-review process” implies that the number of scholars in favor of a thesis agree rather than disagree on its merits. A peer-reviewed thesis that had an equal number for and an equal number against the thesis would prove nothing except that the question was still unresolved. It’s only when a consensus (clear majority) is achieved that a measure of objectivity is credited to a thesis.

Most people value living in a society where murder is not allowed, and most people do not value murdering others, so most people would make the claim that “murder is bad.” I’m saying that that claim has no truth value – it is not true or false, but instead merely reflects the values of the person making the statement (i.e. it reveals the standard by which he judges something “good” or “bad”).

In morals the same applies. Fortunately, the peer review process for the immorality of murder is very nearly the entire human race.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

“Mankind does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that.”

• Nietzsche

Ha!

If we are moral by nature (whether in a Kantian reason-centred or an Aristotelian character-centred sense), the question “why be moral?” is senseless. It’s like saying “why be human?”

Yes, but this is (as James Saint indicates above) dependent upon the hypothetical assertion that one wishes to be fully human. If one does not so wish, one still has reason to wish to be fully human. But what reason? This is the question that Mill’s appeal to higher goods seeks to answer, and Plato’s appeal to hidden goods seeks to answer. And, while I agree that higher goods and hidden goods are part of the answer, I believe there are real scenarios in which the question “Why do the wicked prosper?” makes sense as a question. Mill and Plato (among others) gave incomplete answers, and Kant seemed to be unaware there was a question!

Ask yourself this: why is it irrational to be irrational?

You have no reason to do so.

But in ethics, we do have reasons to do wrong. The question is: why do our ethical obligations *always *trump those reasons? The answer is found in our purpose, as I think you would agree. But if this purpose did not involve beatitude – which is more than happiness, you might mention to your German friend – then we would sometimes lack reason to participate in moral actions.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

The answer lies in to what each leads. The “purpose” in anything is found only in the future it brings. If no particular future is sought, then no morality is relevant. But if no particular future is sought, then why think at all? Why even ask?

The reason people do ask is simple: conventionality. It is conventionality, not consistency, that is the hobgoblin of little minds.

 

[Magnanimity]

“OK, defend that assertion; explain how that can be.”

“I think you all are trying to prove too much here. It seems as if you’re trying to force people into the following conditional: If you do not believe in God then objective moral values do not exist. I don’t see how that’s true at all.”

“If God does not exist then what is the source of objective morality? We don’t believe animals can behave morally; we simply don’t apply that term to their actions but if there is no morality for them how is it that there can be morality for humans? I’m not trying to force people to do anything other than logically address the questions I raised.”

Ender, you can think of the objectivity of morality in an analogous way to your thinking of the objectivity of beauty. Beauty itself has a compelling nature to it. That is, when something is beautiful (eg, Beethoven’s 5th, Adriana Lima, an amazing sunset, etc), that something moves you, as something which is independent of you, compelling you to recognize its intrinsic beauty.

So does moral good largely interact with us in the same way. That is, in life our experience often suggests that there is a compelling nature to goodness. We are often drawn to good people. We are also often drawn to commit good acts, like helping someone in need. Any moral realist, atheist or not, can appeal to the compelling nature of morality as evidence of its being part of the very fabric of the universe. What is the ground of this morality, as you rightly suggest, does lead to theism, I agree. But, that is a separate issue. And the fact still remains that moral realism is not incompatible with atheism.

 

[AntiTheist]

moral realism is not incompatible with atheism

You’re right – there are certainly atheists who are moral realists. I’m not one of them, and I would argue that these atheists are wrong on that point, but there’s nothing contradictory about not believing in a god and still believing that “goodness” is something in the fabric of the universe in the way that you’re talking about.

The problem is that goodness is not something in the fabric of the universe; or, if it is, there’s no way to demonstrate it, and it manifests in a way indistinguishable from subjective human value judgments.

For example, you might claim that there is something in kindness that draws people to it, and a Hindu may claim that there is something in worshipping cows and not eating them that draws people to it, and a Muslim may claim that there is something in a pilgrimage to a foreign country that draws people to it.

The fact is that each person will claim that what he perceives as “good” is something he perceives in the fabric of the universe, yet their claims are indistinguishable from value judgments shaped by biology, society, and reason.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The problem is that goodness is not something in the fabric of the universe; or, if it is, there’s no way to demonstrate it, and it manifests in a way indistinguishable from subjective human value judgments.

Human beings are part of the fabric of the universe. The law of evolution is an objective law that governs the survival of the race. There are other objective laws that govern human survival. Some of these objective laws are embedded in the Ten Commandments. Some are embodied in the natural law or in common sense. To the degree that we deny these laws, we do so at our own peril.

Where most religions overlap in their teaching is where they all agree on the same objective morality. Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu all agree that certain behaviors are objectively wrong. In other areas they may disagree, but each religion is striving to grasp the objective morality that tends to assure the survival not only of the individual, but also of the race.

I know of no religion that preaches murder is good, or adultery is good, or stealing and lying are good.

Only in a world where religious values are not present would it be possible to say that one moral view is objectively no better than any other moral view. But that is a recipe for the notion that any you can get away with by dint of force is permissible. Such a notion leads to moral chaos of the type witnessed in the French Revolution, in the Russian Revolution, in the Chinese Revolution … and in the Third Reich.

In the 20th Century hundreds of millions of people perished because they would not acknowledge that “Love one another” is the *only objective morality *for a sane society.

 

[Magnanimity]

AntiTheist,

Aristotle argued, rightly I think, that not all the ‘sciences’ (branches of knowledge) have the same level of precision. One should not expect from ethics, say, the same level of precision that he obtains in physics. Likewise for politics, it simply will not yield the same level of exactitude as mathematics. One only needs to live for a little bit to realize the truth of this.

However, this does not address the question of whether non-relative virtues may still obtain. The fact that courage will universally be recognized as superior to cowardice (or foolhardiness on the other extreme) has common assent, irrespective of what culture one springs from. The same can be said of justice and so on.

Not many people, I think, are going to find these positions to be controversial, but if you’re one of those few, I’m not sure there’s much I could say to move you in your thinking. The universality of moral norms is a given of human experience, not really open for much debate. Why such universality exists may be an open question-is it a result of some sociobiology fitting into the framework of evolution, or simply part of the fabric of the universe… But that such occurs is pretty much a datum of human experience, I would think.

And, perhaps ironically, I came to this Aristotelian phenomenological position in ethics largely through the thought of the atheist philosopher Jitendra Mohanty (Temple U) and the pagan Aristotle himself. (Of course, since I’m Catholic throw a little St Thomas Aquinas in there for good measure.)

 

[Ender]

Logically, it makes no sense to say that one thing is good or better than another unless you have a standard by which you are measuring “good” or “better.”

In the absence of a standard, good and bad are like left and right; they are relative to some arbitrary restriction. You may get to the North Pole by going north - which is an absolute standard - but you cannot get there by using a relative standard like right or left except by dumb luck. The question is whether, if there is no God, such an absolute standard could exist.

Since you have to go outside of human value judgments, the only option you’re left with is supernatural value judgments (the values of, for example, a god).

And the question is: is that statement true or does (e.g.) Kantian or Aristotelian systems provide a different answer?

The burden is on the morality crowd to demonstrate that their claims are true.

I would agree with that if only because I haven’t been able to come up with any plausible alternative. Finding a valid alternative is what this whole thread is about.

I’ve agreed with mostly everything you said, though will you grant that what I mean by “values” is different than “opinion”?

Before I address this let me point something out to everyone: AntiTheist and I agree, not that objective morality doesn’t actually exist (because I’m sure we disagree there) but that, if God does not exist, neither does objective morality, so let’s be clear about what this debate is addressing.

Now, as to whether “values” are different than “opinions” I don’t know. In what way do they significantly differ? Are values a subset of opinions or is it the other way around? In the absence of anything inherently valuable except to the person who desires it, how is my placing a value on something different from my opinion that I’d like to have it?

Ender

 

[Betterave]

I’m not interested in debating the etymology of terms. If you think I’m using objective and subjective incorrectly then supply your own terms but since everyone (else) seems to understand the distinction being made, and in the absence of anything better, those words will have to serve.

…seems to understand. There is no necessity that we accept naive and misleading ways of using words. I’m trying to explain to you something better so that there won’t continue to be an absence of anything better. But if you prefer confusion, I can’t help you.

I recognize that words have subjective meanings that vary from person to person and that we don’t actually choose those meanings based on personal preference. Nonetheless, the way it is being used in this discussion is to mean precisely that. As I said, if you have better terms for the concepts with which we are dealing, let’s hear them.

Perhaps you should try to recognize that words have objective meanings but that people often use words in a confused way?

Anyway, let’s try your suggestion: “purely subjective” = “based purely on personal preference.” Now your questions will presumably read:

1. Can morality objectively exist or is all morality based purely on personal preference?
2. What are the implications if morality is based purely on personal preference?

And the answers to your questions:

1. Morality is obviously not based purely on personal preference, anymore than language is based purely on personal preference. There is no reason to think it cannot “objectively exist.”
2. In this (purely counter-factual) case it is no longer morality.

 

[Betterave]

If we are moral by nature (whether in a Kantian reason-centred or an Aristotelian character-centred sense), the question “why be moral?” is senseless. It’s like saying “why be human?”

Yes, but this is (as James Saint indicates above) dependent upon the hypothetical assertion that one wishes to be fully human. If one does not so wish, one still has reason to wish to be fully human. But what reason?

Hmmm… I can’t agree. It is not dependent on that hypothetical assertion at all. If one is not interested in being “fully human” (i.e., moral), one is nonetheless still a human, just a morally bad one. The existence of a morally bad human does not mean that humans are not objectively moral. Indeed, there couldn’t be morally bad humans if morality was not objective. Otherwise put: There are objectively morally bad humans; therefore morality is objective. (Someone like AntiTheist, who denies the premise of this argument, can be thought of as simply morally blind; the fact that he and people like him exist is not evidence for the truth of his position, although he seems to think otherwise.)

Quote:
Ask yourself this: why is it irrational to be irrational?

You have no reason to do so.

Your claim is based on the “hypothetical assertion” that I need a reason. But it’s not irrational to be irrational if I don’t care about reasons! (Does that make sense? Sort of!) There are irrational (intellectually vicious) people just as there are immoral (morally vicious) people. In neither case is this evidence that reason or morality is purely a matter of personal preference - it just shows that purely personal preference is purely a matter of personal preference (duh, right?). Unreasonable and immoral people can prefer to ignore reason and morality, but this preference has nothing to do with nature of morality or reason itself.

But in ethics, we do have reasons to do wrong. The question is: why do our ethical obligations always trump those reasons? The answer is found in our purpose, as I think you would agree. But if this purpose did not involve beatitude – which is more than happiness, you might mention to your German friend – then we would sometimes lack reason to participate in moral actions.

Good reasons? Or just motivations/temptations?

 

[Ender]

1. Morality is obviously not based purely on personal preference, anymore than language is based purely on personal preference. There is no reason to think it cannot “objectively exist.”

I guess my problem is that it is not obvious to me and I am looking for an explanation, not an assertion.

Ender

 

[AntiTheist]

And the question is: is that statement true or does (e.g.) Kantian or Aristotelian systems provide a different answer?

I assert that those systems do not – or at least, they don’t present any compelling answers backed up with evidence. We’re reaching the point of the discussion where we need an atheist who is also a moral realist to drop by and make an argument.

Now, as to whether “values” are different than “opinions” I don’t know. In what way do they significantly differ?

Well, “opinions” sound to me like they are something very much subject to change, and while I agree that values can potentially change, the most basic values shared by the majority of a culture – which is what we’re talking about here – tend to be very difficult to change and only change very slowly, if at all.

Values aren’t arbitrary (or “whimsical,” as someone here called them), they’re not subject to quick or easy change (or any change at all), and they’re often not consciously chosen. Instead, they’re an important part of the motivating factor in people.

Take, for example, the value that most people in this society put on living in an environment where they’re protected from murder and the value that people place on not murdering others (i.e. the fact that few people typically walk around with a desire to kill others). Those values are in no sense arbitrary – they are informed by millions of years of biology (self-defense and empathy) and thousands of years of civilization. And they’re not consciously chosen by most people. Most people don’t wake up and say, “Gee, I think I’ll decide to not value murder today.” It’s not a decision – it’s part of the motivating force of who a person is.

Now depending on how we define terms, we might say that opinions are a subset of values, or are informed by values, or are identical. But my point is that dismissing values as an “opinion” really overlooks the point I’m making, and it makes it falsely sound like in a world without an absolute morality, everyone could realistically wake up tomorrow and decide to become serial killers.

 

[Betterave]

Take, for example, the value that most people in this society put on living in an environment where they’re protected from murder and the value that people place on not murdering others (i.e. the fact that few people typically walk around with a desire to kill others). Those values are in no sense arbitrary – they are informed by millions of years of biology (self-defense and empathy) and thousands of years of civilization. And they’re not consciously chosen by most people. Most people don’t wake up and say, “Gee, I think I’ll decide to not value murder today.” It’s not a decision – it’s part of the motivating force of who a person is.

I think you’re getting closer to the truth here, but it still worth clearly distinguishing the concept of value and the concept of motivating force. I can value something but lack motivation to pursue it (think of akrasia). Or I can be motivated to pursue something, but not value it (think of the addict trying to quit).

Now depending on how we define terms, we might say that opinions are a subset of values, or are informed by values, or are identical. But my point is that dismissing values as an “opinion” really overlooks the point I’m making, and it makes it falsely sound like in a world without an absolute morality, everyone could realistically wake up tomorrow and decide to become serial killers.

Well opinions are not arbitrary either, are they? People are no more going to wake up tomorrow with the *opinion *that serial killers are morally good human beings. Anyway, your point here about values not changing overnight is obvious and is irrelevant to what is controversial about your position. Don’t you want to say something much stronger, that if *one *person wakes up tomorrow and decides to become a serial killer, then his decision is not objectively immoral? If he prefers that, *that *is moral - he need not give reasons, he need not reflect on his preferences, he need only *note *his preference, from which he can directly infer that his choice is intrinsically permissible (i.e., moral).

The vast majority of us will want to say, no, he is morally bad, something has gone objectively wrong in his moral development. Certainly he doesn’t understand what morality is, and we know this immediately simply by looking at the *form *of his ‘moral’ inference.

 

[Betterave]

I guess my problem is that it is not obvious to me and I am looking for an explanation, not an assertion.

Ender

It’s not obvious to you?

To get you started, think about this: when is the last time you heard someone say, “I have a purely personal preference for chocolate and a purely personal dispreference for bananas; therefore eating chocolate is moral and eating bananas is immoral” (or substitute Bach and Chopin, morally better and worse, or whatever you like). Such talk obviously expresses a misunderstanding of the correct use of moral language. (I hope it’s obvious!)

 

[Ender]

We’re reaching the point of the discussion where we need an atheist who is also a moral realist to drop by and make an argument.

Exactly.

Well, “opinions” sound to me like they are something very much subject to change, and while I agree that values can potentially change, the most basic values shared by the majority of a culture – which is what we’re talking about here – tend to be very difficult to change and only change very slowly, if at all.

That’s because few people give this serious thought. I agree with you about populations but I’m more concerned with how the thoughtful individual would act.

Values aren’t arbitrary

Arbitrary: depending on individual discretion. It does seem to me that values are arbitrary.

they’re not subject to quick or easy change (or any change at all), and they’re often not consciously chosen. Instead, they’re an important part of the motivating factor in people.

All of this may be true but I that doesn’t get to the point of logically why values should be chosen.

Those values are in no sense arbitrary – they are informed by millions of years of biology (self-defense and empathy) and thousands of years of civilization. And they’re not consciously chosen by most people.

They are not arbitrary in that people accept them without thinking; in that sense they are simply customs, but let’s not talk about the mass of people who don’t think about these things; let’s restrict it to how we should understand it.

Now depending on how we define terms, we might say that opinions are a subset of values, or are informed by values, or are identical.

In thinking about this some more I believe that values may be a subset of opinions in that all values are opinions but not all opinions are values.

But my point is that dismissing values as an “opinion” really overlooks the point I’m making, and it makes it falsely sound like in a world without an absolute morality, everyone could realistically wake up tomorrow and decide to become serial killers.

We have no danger of that happening but … logically why should it not?

Ender

 

[Ender]

To get you started, think about this: when is the last time you heard someone say, “I have a purely personal preference for chocolate and a purely personal dispreference for bananas; therefore eating chocolate is moral and eating bananas is immoral” (or substitute Bach and Chopin, morally better and worse, or whatever you like).

It is obvious that this is not how morality is viewed but I am talking about it in a specific context. In the real world there are billions of religious people who take their values from their religious beliefs; other billions just grow into them without close thought. In the case of this thread those categories are irrelevant, the first because I specified that God does not exist and the second because they don’t thoughtfully consider the implications.

Such talk obviously expresses a misunderstanding of the correct use of moral language. (I hope it’s obvious!)

But … I am questioning whether morality can even exist as anything other than personal preference if there is no God. Clearly my comments don’t accord with what most people actually believe - nor do they accord with what I believe - but this is a theoretical discussion. I am asking “What are the implications of X being true?” In this specific case it is: “What is true about morality if God does not exist?”

Ender

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Ender

But … I am questioning whether morality can even exist as anything other than personal preference if there is no God. Clearly my comments don’t accord with what most people actually believe - nor do they accord with what I believe - but this is a theoretical discussion. I am asking “What are the implications of X being true?” In this specific case it is: "What is true about morality if God does not exist?"

You raise an interesting point. It could be argued that *reason alone *could bring us to a true or objective morality. And it can. Unfortunately, one man’s reason can be another man’s foolishness. There is no way to confirm or deny rationality except by going to a higher court. This process is politicized in the American system. All issues can be “rationally” argued from the lower courts and appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. There is no power higher to appeal over the Supreme Court but the Supreme Being.

God entered the stream of history first through Revelation, and finally in Person. If we do not accept that, then all appeals must stop at the Supreme Court. Which means that if the Supreme court errs, as it has in the past (Dred Scott decision, for example, Roe v Wade too) then evil will be allowed to run amok for as long as it likes, or until men finally acknowledge that the frailty of reason has been shown up by the light of His truth. Today there are five Catholics on the Supreme Court, rather than five atheists. If there is a way for Revelation to resume its sway over American history, now would be the time.