If Good and Evil Exist then God Exists

[PRmerger]

Well, those concepts haven’t changed. But our attitudes to race and gender has changed considerably. Our perception of morality as it relates to other species and our environment has changed dramatically. Our ideas about how we treat children have changed. You can’t seriously claim that we have remained static in how we perceive morals over time, surely.

Yes, and it is thanks to the Christian ethos that these attitudes have changed.

All the above premises are based on this very Christian concept: the human person has inherent dignity because he is made in the image and likeness of God.

 

[Bradski]

Utilitarianism can’t be a legitimate source of morality for atheists because NO (moral) atheist is going to advocate slavery which benefits 90% of society while enslaving 10% of that society.

I would qualify that. I would say that simply and solely using Utilitarianism cannot be a legitimate source of morality. Otherwise you would, as you say, be able to justify slavery. But it (utilitarianism) can and often is the first step in deciding if something is wrong or not. Quite often it’s the only criteria used. But you can’t always use it in isolation.

Cheating, then, can be amoral if no one is harmed?

So then I don’t understand your reasoning that adultery, which is, essentially, just another form of cheating, would be wrong if no one is harmed.

That’s cheating whether it’s on a test (where you betray your professor, even if only you benefit and your professor never knows), or with a spouse (where you betray your spouse, even if only you benefit and your spouse never knows.)

Yes, cheating can be amoral, but only if there is no-one else affected by it apart from yourself. You’re trying to squeeze me into a position which I don’t hold. Yes, if you betrayed your professor in cheating then it would be immoral. You’d be cheating him. But that’s why I used the golf analogy. It’s effectively cheating in moving your ball, but literally no-one is affected by it. If I cheat at Sudoku by looking up a couple of numbers, then it’s not immoral. No-one else is affected.

Perhaps I can help clear this up but being a little more specific. For an act to be immoral, it doesn’t matter if the harm is not recognised as such by the recipient (if I can call her that). If I steal from someone and they don’t realise that they’ve been stolen from you could say no harm has been done, but it is still immoral. They are worse off, even if they don’t recognise that fact. If that wasn’t the case, then a decision on the morality of theft would come down to how much was stolen.

If you cheat on your wife and she doesn’t find out you could say that no harm has been done, but it is still immoral. The relationship has been damaged even if she doesn’t recognise the fact. You have broken a promise to her and are in effect living a lie from then on in.

Yes, and it is thanks to the Christian ethos that these attitudes have changed.

I might pass on that not to derail the thread, but it’s a topic that could be discussed at some time.

 

[PRmerger]

I would qualify that. I would say that simply and solely using Utilitarianism cannot be a legitimate source of morality. Otherwise you would, as you say, be able to justify slavery.

'zactly.

But it (utilitarianism) can and often is the first step in deciding if something is wrong or not. Quite often it’s the only criteria used. But you can’t always use it in isolation.

Sure.

I use it often in my family and say, “You have to do what’s right for the family sometimes, dear daughter.”

 

[PRmerger]

If you cheat on your wife and she doesn’t find out you could say that no harm has been done, but it is still immoral. The relationship has been damaged even if she doesn’t recognise the fact. You have broken a promise to her and are in effect living a lie from then on in.

Interesting.

So someone can be harmed without knowing she is harmed, and that can constitute an immoral act.

Do you see how the Catholic paradigm of sin fits in here?

Even if we take God out of the picture, and eliminate the “when we sin it harms our relationship with God” part, it appears that you understand the communal nature of sin.

So…even if one cannot see how homosexual unions will hurt society, you can see why Christians believe that we are harmed by it?

And even if one cannot see how other sexual sins (say, watching pornography, or perhaps masturbation) may harm someone, but one can look at it objectively and say, “Even if you don’t know you are being harmed, it is still harmful to you, objectively.”

 

[Bradski]

Interesting. So someone can be harmed without knowing she is harmed, and that can constitute an immoral act.

Do you see how the Catholic paradigm of sin fits in here? Even if we take God out of the picture, and eliminate the “when we sin it harms our relationship with God” part, it appears that you understand the communal nature of sin.

I’m not sure how it directly relates to the ‘communal nature of sin’ (and I’m assuming that ‘sin’ and ‘immoral’ are interchangeable here). Unless you are referring to something like Kant’s dictum: ‘Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a general natural law’. So that adultery is wrong because if it’s not acceptable for all to do it, it’s not acceptable for you.

So…even if one cannot see how homosexual unions will hurt society, you can see why Christians believe that we are harmed by it?

No, because you haven’t reached a conclusion that homosexuality is wrong. You can look at adultery and give reasons and make a case why it is wrong or why cheating or theft is wrong but the majority of Christians believe homosexuality is wrong simply because their religion states it as such. Yes, I agree that you can come up secular arguments as well, but they start with the premise that it’s wrong. You start with the conclusion, then look for arguments to support it. That doesn’t make sense to me. Apart from the fact that I haven’t heard any argument worth listening to as to how it harms society.

And even if one cannot see how other sexual sins (say, watching pornography, or perhaps masturbation) may harm someone, but one can look at it objectively and say, “Even if you don’t know you are being harmed, it is still harmful to you, objectively.”

As long as they don’t do it in the office or in front of me in the pub (either example), I’ve got no problem with it personally. Although I can see that people can become addicted to pornography, so it could be a problem. But immoral? I can’t see that. Not everything that is harmful is immoral.

 

[PRmerger]

I’m not sure how it directly relates to the ‘communal nature of sin’ (and I’m assuming that ‘sin’ and ‘immoral’ are interchangeable here). Unless you are referring to something like Kant’s dictum: ‘Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a general natural law’. So that adultery is wrong because if it’s not acceptable for all to do it, it’s not acceptable for you.

What I mean by the “communal nature” of sin is that an individual’s sins affect all of us. That’s why Catholics believe in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and not necessarily just confessing our sins to God directly. There’s nothing “just me and God” about our faith.

And, as you so aptly pointed out, something can be harmful to someone without her knowing it is harming her.

I think this is especially manifested in sexual sins.

No, because you haven’t reached a conclusion that homosexuality is wrong.

My response was simply in response to the comment that lots of people like to make: “Same-Sex Marriage won’t affect you, so what’s the big deal?”

I don’t need to entertain the idea whether homosexuality is immoral to address the above argument that’s often presented.

You can look at adultery and give reasons and make a case why it is wrong or why cheating or theft is wrong but the majority of Christians believe homosexuality is wrong simply because their religion states it as such.

I am astonished that you would say this after being on the CAFs this long. Surely you can see that arguments being presented by many of us us against homosexuality have not appealed to our Church.

Now, I think one Catholic poster, Faithdancer, said that he always uses religion as his argument.

But I think the majority of us, when discussing with atheists, never cite religion.

Yes, I agree that you can come up secular arguments as well, but they start with the premise that it’s wrong. You start with the conclusion, then look for arguments to support it. That doesn’t make sense to me. Apart from the fact that I haven’t heard any argument worth listening to as to how it harms society.

Well, you yourself have stated that something can be harmful without our knowing that it is.

As long as they don’t do it in the office or in front of me in the pub (either example), I’ve got no problem with it personally.

Heh. Yep, I really hope they don’t do it in the office or in front of me in the pub, either.

Although I can see that people can become addicted to pornography, so it could be a problem. But immoral? I can’t see that. Not everything that is harmful is immoral.

Perhaps.

 

[Bradski]

My response was simply in response to the comment that lots of people like to make: “Same-Sex Marriage won’t affect you, so what’s the big deal?”

I don’t need to entertain the idea whether homosexuality is immoral to address the above argument that’s often presented.

But you have to make a decision on the first before you can move to the second. It’s nonsense to ask someone who thinks that homosexuality per se is wrong if they think that gay people should get married. To even consider the question, you have to accept that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality in the first instance. It would be like asking a racist if they think that inter-racial marriages should be acceptable (and I apologise if the example gives offence – I’m not inferring anything by it).

I am astonished that you would say this after being on the CAFs this long. Surely you can see that arguments being presented by many of us us against homosexuality have not appealed to our Church. Now, I think one Catholic poster, Faithdancer, said that he always uses religion as his argument. But I think the majority of us, when discussing with atheists, never cite religion.

Funny, I always thought Faithdancer was a she. In any case, I don’t see any arguments against homosexuality itself that don’t stem from the initial religious belief. But we’re heading off topic

 

[Eleve]

Yes, it is perfectly coherent for someone to have a personal opinion, but that is not actually what is being examined here. When people say things like, “slavery is never acceptable”, they are going beyond personal opinion and making an objective commitment for others. It is a moral standard which judges the actions of others and allows for no exceptions. If I say that slavery and Nazi war crimes are never morally acceptable then it does not simply mean that it is unacceptable for me, but for all people of all time.

It’s true that a moral judgment generally includes the view that other people should agree with and abide by it. But it doesn’t follow that the Humean has to think that other people should agree with her views because they are facts. She could just have a negative opinion of people who disagree with her moral opinions, in the same way that she has a negative opinion of people who perform certain actions or a negative opinion of certain kinds of music.

If I say “I don’t like it when anyone sings Wagner ever,” am I committed to the view that people who like Wagner are failing to notice a fact about his music? If I say that someone has “poor taste”, am I committed to the view that there is an objectively correct taste that she would instead, if she were reasoning properly?

I can’t tell what Eleve believes, but she seems to be supporting universal morality rather than objective morality.

Actually, I do believe in objective morals. I’m making the distinction for the sake of clarity, and because I think that Eric’s argument is unsound because it denies this distinction. But, at the end of the day, I think the Humeans are wrong - just for reasons different from the ones that Eric gives.

 

[Eleve]

Actually, let me give a clearer example. I got a less-than-hoped for grade on a paper a while back because I used some very unclear wording, using a bunch of different terms for the same thing even though they’re often distinguished, and not making it clear what I meant by them. In marking me down, the grader was expressing her view that I should have done things differently.

On the other hand, I’ve written other papers that have gotten As, even though they’ve had flaws, including flaws with clarity. Now, conceivably, a grader with a different view of what’s important in a philosophy paper would have given me different grades - marking me down for mistakes that have been let slide, while writing off the clarity issues as forgivable.

I think most people would say that, beyond a certain level of resolution at least, there is no objective fact about how papers should be graded. Two graders could look at the same paper and give it different grades, and it wouldn’t mean that any of them would be wrong. They would just have different opinions about how people should write philosophy papers.

But their opinions are universalizing, right? It’s not as if the grader thinks my paper would have been worthy of an A if it the same words had been written by Socrates, or a tenured professor. Nor does it matter to her if I think that my way of writing papers is right. She has her opinion about how I should do things, with respect to philosophy papers at least, and she’s going to hold me to that standard whether I like it or not.

Is there anything wrong with that?

 

[zro_x]

Utilitarianism can’t be a legitimate source of morality for atheists because NO (moral) atheist is going to advocate slavery which benefits 90% of society while enslaving 10% of that society.

Even given this generalized benefit to society, you will never see any moral person, atheist or believer, advocating that type of utilitarian reasoning.

And that is why you’ll never see any utilitarian website advocating slavery. Because all moral people see the absurdity in this type of utilitarian thinking.

That wasn’t the reason I gave for why I thought that utilitarians would not advocate slavery.

The reason I gave was that in the real world, slavery never actually increases well-being. Utilitarians condemn slavery by their own utilitarian standard, without looking to an objective morality. They might accept that there may come a day where that changes, who knows how, but that day is certainly a long way off, and I don’t think you’ll find them endorsing slavery in today’s world.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Actually, let me give a clearer example. I got a less-than-hoped for grade on a paper a while back because I used some very unclear wording, using a bunch of different terms for the same thing even though they’re often distinguished, and not making it clear what I meant by them. In marking me down, the grader was expressing her view that I should have done things differently.

On the other hand, I’ve written other papers that have gotten As, even though they’ve had flaws, including flaws with clarity. Now, conceivably, a grader with a different view of what’s important in a philosophy paper would have given me different grades - marking me down for mistakes that have been let slide, while writing off the clarity issues as forgivable.

I think most people would say that, beyond a certain level of resolution at least, there is no objective fact about how papers should be graded. Two graders could look at the same paper and give it different grades, and it wouldn’t mean that any of them would be wrong. They would just have different opinions about how people should write philosophy papers.

But their opinions are universalizing, right? It’s not as if the grader thinks my paper would have been worthy of an A if it the same words had been written by Socrates, or a tenured professor. Nor does it matter to her if I think that my way of writing papers is right. She has her opinion about how I should do things, with respect to philosophy papers at least, and she’s going to hold me to that standard whether I like it or not.

Is there anything wrong with that?

Why would there be anything wrong with that? Grades are not moral judgments, but assessments of your ability to answer questions.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

So by what standard to you judge, say, adultery to be immoral (if you do)?

I can’t give you a logical reason why it’s wrong (aside from the fact that you’d probably end up losing your wife). However, my upbringing and my ability to feel empathy for other human beings would prevent me from doing so. I suppose morality is as cultural as it is up to the individual.

I don’t think the argument makes sense, anyway. Objective morality needs a source, and if your source is God, then it’s circular reasoning. You’re stating that God gives us objective morality, and since objective morality exists, God must be real. The existence of God is an argument for objective morality, but the existence of objective morality isn’t an argument for God. You’re just starting with the baseless assumption that objective morality exists.

Frankly, I don’t see how any god’s view of morality would be anything other than their opinion. People clearly don’t have some kind of in-built morality. Their morality is shaped and twisted from birth, and people can be raised to hate and want to kill others. Unless you’ll argue that might makes right, I fail to see how a god’s view (or, indeed, God’s) would be worth anything more than my own. Sure, the god would be able to enforce their morality unlike me, but does that make it correct?

 

[zro_x]

Actually, I do believe in objective morals. I’m making the distinction for the sake of clarity, and because I think that Eric’s argument is unsound because it denies this distinction. But, at the end of the day, I think the Humeans are wrong - just for reasons different from the ones that Eric gives.

Interesting. You have to be the first atheist (I hope I am not here being too presumptious again?) I’ve come across who has obviously given this some thought and yet still believes in an objective morality. I’d like to know your reasoning behind this view. could you explain it?

 

[Robert_Sock]

“Evil” does not exist, it is a lack of good just as dark is a lack of light and cold is a lack of heat, as science has shown us. Good exists, and it exists because God exists.

Good and evil are independent of each other.

 

[Bradski]

“Evil” does not exist, it is a lack of good just as dark is a lack of light and cold is a lack of heat, as science has shown us. Good exists, and it exists because God exists.

This is actually a good analogy, but perhaps not in the way that Pauline meant.

Cold and hot are relative terms as are dark and light (as opposed to temperature and brightness which have fixed, albeit arbitrary, values). Something can be described as hot only in relation to something else. And there is no fixed dividing line between a ‘hot’ object and a ‘cold’ one. There’s effectively an infinite gradient in temperature between the two.

If there was a child dying in front of you and all you had to do was hand someone a dollar and she’d be saved, you’d do it. If you didn’t, your refusal could be described as an evil act.

If the child was just out of sight but you could hear her, you’d still do it. But keep stretching the example until she’s dying in a refugee camp in the other side of the world. Your feelings toward her decrease the greater the disconnect between the two of you, just like a hot object gets colder.

At some point, you refuse to give the dollar and she dies. Is that the point when it becomes an evil act?

 

[PRmerger]

The reason I gave was that in the real world, slavery never actually increases well-being.

Well, of course. Immoral acts never increase well being. But that’s the Christian ethos, not the utilitarian one.

Utilitarians condemn slavery by their own utilitarian standard, without looking to an objective morality.

Then they are appealing to a different standard for morality than utilitarianism.

Frankly, I am astonished that anyone could argue with the fact that 90% of society enslaving 10% of society would, by utilitarian standards, be moral.

 

[PRmerger]

Funny, I always thought Faithdancer was a she.

Why? Do you believe there’s something inherently feminine about being a dancer?

 

[PRmerger]

But you have to make a decision on the first before you can move to the second. It’s nonsense to ask someone who thinks that homosexuality per se is wrong if they think that gay people should get married. To even consider the question, you have to accept that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality in the first instance. It would be like asking a racist if they think that inter-racial marriages should be acceptable (and I apologise if the example gives offence – I’m not inferring anything by it).

Or you can take it from the question, “What is marriage?”

I don’t need to understand that polygamy is wrong before I have a definition of what marriage is.

The definition of marriage comes first. Then we can provide arguments for why {A} is not a marriage.

 

[ccmnxc]

I do believe in objective morals. However, I have hit an intellectual roadblock in the Euthyphro Dilemma. Did God choose objective morals because they are good, because that would result in Him only being the messenger and these morals transcending Him? Or are morals good because He chose them, making them arbitrary and therefore, non-objective? A common response to this is that it is neither, but it is God’s nature to be perfectly good. Okay. Is it also true that He cannot contradict His nature? After all, he says “Thou shall not kill,” yet He kills people Himself. That means the same morality doesn’t apply to Him and therefore isn’t objective.
I’d appreciate your thoughts on this. This is kinda a spur off of Treatise on Morality by Youtube poster Theoretical BS. I’m not sure how accurately I represented his arguments but that is what I have trouble with. Thanks.

 

[EricFilmer]

And that is exactly why I postulated that our impulse risk our lives to help people is actually stronger than our impulse for self-interest, though we do not feel the impulse.

When most people describe placing themselves in danger, they usually describe three impulses:

1. Self-preservation, which they experience as being the stronger impulse.
2. Desire to help someone in need, which they experience to be the weaker impulse.
3. A third impulse, the conscience, which says that one ought to go with #2, even though it is the weakest of them.

People cannot be experiencing Impulse #2 as the weaker impulse and at the same time this impulse is somehow stronger and not felt. Consider this in light of the following from Mere Christianity:

We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct – by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not.

• C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 22.

In terms of Impulse #3 in my above outline, C.S. Lewis states…
Now this thing that judges between the two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.
-Ibid, 23.

The point I’m trying to make is that Peter Kreeft must make a case against such a conclusion if he is going to accomplish his intent, which is to prove the existence of God. Though this video does seem to show that moral objectivity is incompatible with naturalism, it does not show that God exists. Of course, not making a case against this conclusion is just one of the reasons why the argument made in this video is unsound. let’s look at the five-point outline I provided in more detail.

Kreeft is showing that if our physical reality is not responsible for the Moral Law then we need to look for a Lawgiver who transcends or physical reality. I admit that his video is far-reaching in what it promises, but it presents a method in critical thinking that does allow people to continue this philosophical examination on their own and reach the same conclusions he makes. Just because his video is far-reaching does not make it unsound.

Or perhaps it all depends on what is meant by “unsound”. To me, “unsound” means that Kreeft utilized fallacious reasoning, and/or the video has no real merit (which is what my long debate with inocente examined). But if by “unsound” you mean that Kreeft’s video does not, in and of itself, make a clear philosophical case for the Judeo-Christian concept of God then I would have to agree. But I think the video has merit all the same.

I suppose you’re right. I was only thinking of all the vocal atheists that I have personally encountered. I have never met met or heard from an atheist yet who supported the idea of an objective morality. Just look at the atheists on this thread who’ve commented on the subject. Both Regular Atheist and Trurl support subjective moralities. I can’t tell what Eleve believes, but she seems to be supporting universal morality rather than objective morality. (great distinction, BTW. ) but in any case, regardless of whether or not most atheists support objective morality, it is certainly true that not all atheists appeal to it, which means Kreeft’s very first premise is unsound.

Maybe not all atheists actually appeal to it, but I would say many and probably most do in their daily lives, whether they realize it or not. Trurl claimed that he believed in subjective-only morality, and to an extent so did inocente (although inocente is not an atheist; also, inocente seemed to support the idea that the Golden Rule was the only type of authentic objective morality), but neither could give me straight answers when I put tried to put these beliefs to the test. RA stated that he did not make appeals to objective morality, but people who read this thread can ask themselves how accurately his theory that morality is “personal opinion & nothing more” reflects their own human experience in matters of morality.

I’m guessing that Kreeft’s target audience (or at least the one he hopes for) are the atheists who resemble C.S. Lewis prior to his conversion. The beliefs of atheists are varied and there is no such thing as a video that can address all of them. I think therefore that there is merit in Kreeft designing a short video to address the many people who make appeals to objective morality (whether they realize it or not, or whether they want to admit it or not).

As a side note, in terms of the distinction between a universal morality and objective morality, the manner by which universal morality has been defined in this thread shows that it is still a subjective-only system of morality. Therefore, it cannot be realistically used to make appeals to objective morality.

(Continued in my next post)