Archive
Dave’s Mailbag: BB wants to save my soul
This is from a comment thread on a YouTube video of mine. This fellow, BB, posted 14 comments back-to-back due to character limits. I told him I’d respond in a blog post rather than leave a huge string of comments in return. Here are his posts reconstructed into one block, and my response:
BB:
have you accepted God into your life and turned away from sins and shared the gospel with everyone you care about and know?
Dave:
Um, I’m the Public Relations Director for American Atheists.
BB:
Well, you probably make a living selling books on the philosophy of Atheism. Which is a motivation for thinking you might be intellectually dishonest as your living relies on selling this philosophy, which makes it hard to ever convince you otherwise.
If not then we can have an honest and open discussion based on just logic without any agenda behind it from both our parts.
Dave:
No, I don’t sell books for a living. I’m not a bookstore. I do public relations.
BB:
You seem like a cool intelligent guy. I can convince you that no religion, no church can ever cleanse you of sin, only sincere repentance, and trusting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.
If it’s true we just go in to the ground when we die then you can’t say ‘See, I told you I was right’ and I can’t tell you ‘I’m sorry I was totally wrong’. But if it’s true there is a heaven and you can go there, wouldn’t it be logical to find out how to get there?
Dave:
There’s no such thing as sin. It’s an imaginary concept. Sin (i.e. “transgression against divine law”) doesn’t really exist, because “divine law” is imaginary.
Yes, IF it were true that there is a heaven and you can go there, it would be logical to look into it. But there isn’t, and you can’t. If you want to claim otherwise, you have the burden of proof. Good luck.
BB:
ok well the burden of proof is actually on you as you claim to have proof that God doesn’t exist. If you’re not saying that you have proof then I respect your intellectual consistency and honesty. This is because the best we can do is follow the evidence, because nothing can be proved.
You can’t prove that you walked the earth yesterday. We have to go by evidence such as eye witness testimony.
So we’ve recognized that proving anything is impossible. So the next step is to trust Evidence. We can only trust Evidence if it is shown to be reliable.
So the only thing stopping you from investigating heaven and grabbing the only ticket that will get you there is because you are unsure if there is such a thing as sin.
Well I can tell you that there is such a thing as sin.
There is such a thing as sin because sin is defined outside of culture. Everyone refers to a moral code outside culture because if we lived in a culture where gassing jews or slavery was ok, it still wouldn’t make it right.
That’s why Ghandi and Martin Luther king and others like them existed. They went against their culture because they put objective moral law on top of cultural laws.
No one can live atheism out in real life consistently. For example if you found your wife in the arms of another man you wouldn’t say hey it’s your right to believe unfaithfulness is wrong so I’m not gonna judge you for it.
Loyalty is right not because anyone defines it, it’s right because that’s what we know in our hearts to be true.
God says he has written these moral codes in our hearts. These objective moral laws are intelligently and lovingly created by an intelligent and loving being.
God respects our free will to choose to do right or to do wrong, that’s why people choose to be unfaithful and others choose to be faithful.
So if there is no God then morality is subjective, it’s all relative so Hitler was right in his opinion and I am right in my opinion. Then chaos erupts.
No God, no harmony, no justice. Just chaos and destruction.
Which speaks allot to the condition and the reason for the condition of some parts of the world today.
So once we’ve deduced rationally that there is a God who gives us objective moral values and we can choose or not choose to follow these, then we can go on to find out what happens if we choose to follow these or not.
If we don’t then God grants us our desire. Eternity away from him. If we do then God grants us our desire. Eternity with him.
I’d say I wouldn’t want to find out what eternity is like without him, why? because Satan is without God by his own choosing and he rules hell. Would you want to meet Satan and find out what kind of gastly things he would do to you?
I’d prefer heaven where everything is awesome.
Also I want to take as many people with me to heaven cuz I love my fellow human being. 100 years is nothing vs eternity.
If someone gave me a billion dollars to be without God I’d rather be a homeless person with God because this life is so short anyways.
Okay, so we’ve defined how God exists, what’s good and evil, free will and what sin is.
Now we have to find out what God wants from us. 1. Put your trust in him to guide your life. 2. To show loyalty, love and trust, then turn from sin, otherwise you become a hypocrite.
No sin is worth going to hell over. Remember Jesus spoke more about hell then he did about heaven. He described it as a lake of fire. I would assume that it’s a place of total destruction and chaos. Maybe the equivalent of a dentist poking your nerve for eternity.
Not paradise. lol
In the end, not sinning and praying sincerely from forgiveness isn’t hard.
I don’t think if someone offered you 100 women to pleasure you sexually outside the blessing of God, but you had to site in a dentists chair and take him touching your nerve for 8 hours, you would absolutely deny it. Why? Because it ain’t worth it.
That’s just 8 hours. lol imagine forever. So in perspective it’s good news.God offers you a free ticket to heaven, just take it man and share it with as many people as possible, especially those you wanna see in heaven with you such as your loved ones.
Dude, I’m pleading with you just do it. Any reputation or wealth in this life is not worth it. Now why would I sit here and write a 13 comment reply to you, not asking for money, not to join a religion or to even go to a church, spending my own time?
I don’t believe in silly things. Please for the love of God, do it.
Thanks for listening. Any other questions you might wanna ask?
Dave:
You’ve got to be kidding me. First of all, just, wow, 14 comments back to back. I’m strongly considering banning you, except that skimming them, it appears you are sincere. I’m going to respond to this, but not here; I have a blog and I’m going to do it there. The blog is at muSASHA . o r g. I can’t do it tonight but I’ll get to it when I can.
And here’s my full response:
If you are making the positive claim that a god exists, you have the burden of proof. Same goes for sin.
I agree with you about your stance on evidence and our inability to prove things with 100% certainty. It’s called the problem of induction and I’m totally with you there.
I’m not “unsure” about the existence of sin. I mean, in a very technical sense, I’m agnostic about it, but for all practical purposes, I don’t believe sin exists, because I don’t believe in divine law, because I don’t believe in anything supernatural. If you want to convince me sin exists, you first have to show me that divine law exists. In order to do that, you have to convince me that a divine lawgiver exists. So really, being “unsure” about sin is NOT the “only thing” holding me back. I don’ t believe in your god, either.
You speak of objective morality. Objective from what? You mean, outside of culture? It seems like that’s what you’re saying. If all life in the universe were to be wiped out at the same instant, would slavery still be unethical? I don’t know if we can really answer that. It wouldn’t matter at that point. Ethics, the subfield of philosophy that prescriptively tells us how we ought to act, is a human invention—and we are the only species that has them, that we’re aware of—but morals (a subfield of ethology, that descriptively tells us how animals interact) evolve in cooperative species all by themselves. There’s a lot of game theory involved but this is not a mystery to science. If you’re interested in how morality evolved, I recommend Matt Ridley’s wonderful book, “The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation.” Other good books are Robert Axelrod’s “The Evolution of Cooperation” and Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis’ “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution.“ The last two are pretty math-heavy but they do an excellent job of explaining how this works, and Richard Dawkins wrote the forward of the former.
Slavery is wrong because we decided that people have rights and shouldn’t be owned by other people. That’s not objectively provable, and it wasn’t always the case. Our society has progressed ethically from the time when slavery was the norm (although by raw numbers, not per capita, there are more slaves in the world today than at any point in history). I disagree with your conclusion that sin exists and we can know this because everyone “refers” to a moral code outside of culture. I don’t, for one. Moral codes are inextricable from culture from an ethology perspective.
On to your next point: You say “no one can live out atheism consistently” because, for example, if I found my wife in bed with someone else, I wouldn’t be okay with it. What?…
First of all, that’s a non sequitur. Atheism is the simply the lack of belief in the existence of all gods. This has absolutely nothing to do with sexual ethics?… You seem to be missing about a dozen premises between your first premise and your conclusion there. Second of all, you don’t know me. I would be fine with that; I’m polyamorous. I would hope that she’s being safe about it, but I wouldn’t begrudge someone for having consensual sex. My wife is not my property and as an adult, she can make her own decisions about who she has sex with. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s none of my business, but I would not be mad or jealous. Please note: I’m speaking hypothetically because I’ve never been married, although I was engaged for awhile once.
Then you go on to say that loyalty is right not by definition but because “we know in our hearts” that it is. Yeah, that’s the evolved morality thing we were talking about earlier. See 3 paragraphs up. By the way, loyalty is not always right; it depends on your system of ethics. Hitler’s troops were following orders when they gassed Jews. I think we’d both agree that what they were doing wasn’t ethical, even though they were being loyal when they did it.
Next you claim that God has written these moral codes in our hearts. A couple of major problems here: You jumped right into “God has…” without first showing that a god exists in the first place. What is your argument for god’s existence? Secondly, what do you mean he has “written in our hearts” blah blah blah? I assume you don’t mean that literally; a heart is a muscle and I’m pretty certain there’s no classical Hebrew etched in there, although I haven’t physically checked because that could prove rather tricky 
If you mean that God has imprinted a gut feeling of these moral codes, then we can work with this. First of all, I try not to think with my gut; I try to think with my brain. The reason I try not to think with my gut is that my gut and your gut can disagree and there’s really no good way to resolve that as far as knowing who’s right and who’s wrong. Only with evidence and logic can we systematically rule out wrong answers and settle on right ones. Second, again, we have this problem that you haven’t shown your god exists at all, let alone that he has done any such thing as imprint moral codes into us. Citation needed!
You wrote:
These objective moral laws are intelligently and lovingly created by an intelligent and loving being.
Bare assertion. Citation needed.
You wrote:
God respects our free will…
I’m not even remotely convinced that humans have free will. Free from what, anyway? The laws of physics? First define “free will,” then convince me that we have it, and we can go down this road. And you still haven’t explained how you know a god exists at all, nor how you claim to know that he respects our free will, even if we have it.
Next you go off on a spiel basically saying that if there were no god, then there would be ”no harmony, no justice. Just chaos and destruction.”
Well, that pretty much seems to be the case. The universe doesn’t know or care that we exist. Nature just does what it does, following simple patterns, or as we call them, laws. Complexity can come out of this, e.g. life on Earth as we recognize it. We have perfectly adequate, natural explanations for all of this. What makes you think there IS justice? Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. Lots of people in the world are dying of starvation and elsewhere in the world, someone is tying $4,000 to some helium-filled balloons and letting it float away just because he can afford it and he’s bored. Look around, man. There’s no justice. The world is what we make of it.
Reading through the rest of your post, I don’t even really see the point of continuing from here. Your argument is a mess and since your later premises depend on your earlier ones, I think you need to go back and revisit them before we can move forward.
Feel free to try again! Thanks for your message(s).
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is the Public Relations Director for American Atheists based in Cranford, New Jersey. An atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker, he is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Google+
Follow me on Twitter
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
“Homophobia”? No, bigotry.
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
I was just talking to Lyz Liddell of the Secular Student Alliance about this the other day. Then I saw this post on Reddit, which reminded me about it, so I decided to write a quick post.
From now on, I’m no longer using the term “homophobia” to describe bigotry against gay people. I’m simply going to call it bigotry.
Bigot: one obstinately and irrationally, often intolerantly, devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.*
I have yet to hear anything close to a rational, fact-based justification for why gay behavior or orientation is anything other than normal, natural, and harmless. Until someone can present this, obstinate, irrational, and intolerant devotion to anti-gay beliefs is simply another way of saying that someone is bigoted.
Phyllis Siegal, 76, and Connie Kopelov, 84, the first gay couple legally married under New York State’s recent marriage equality law. They have been together for 23 years.
Phobias are medical conditions where someone has an irrational *fear* of something that’s normal or otherwise harmless. For example, there’s such a thing as a healthy fear of bears (a mother sow protecting her cubs can be very dangerous), but a phobia of bears is something else entirely. There may in fact be some people who are actually, irrationally afraid of gay people, despite knowing that they are normal, natural, and harmless. But that is not what we mean when we say “homophobic.” We mean “bigoted,” and it’s time we started saying so.
People who normally get called “homophobes” don’t have an irrational fear of gay people. They have an irrational *intolerance* to the belief that gay people are sinful, etc. That’s just bigotry, plain & simple.
That’s all. Good night!
- Dave
*”bigot.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (15 Jun. 2012).
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com – Iron Chariots Wiki – Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an – AtheismResource.com – TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Is this even legal?
Hello all,
I came across this great website called Fiverr.com. Similar to Facebook’s “What’s on your mind?”, Fiverr asks, “What are you willing to do for $5?” The ideas is that you can hire someone to do some task for $5. Examples include drawing a custom logo in Illustrator, recording a custom 30-second jingle for your company, brainstorming business names, drawing a caricature of you for your website, etc. I imagine this is especially useful for underemployed people who want some extra income, or for self-employed customers on a budget who need a quick turnaround and artistic skills they don’t personally have.
One particular offer stood out to me enough that I wanted to blog about it. For $5, this couple will “send positive thoughts to whoever [sic] you want,” for “a whole day.” Wow, what a deal! Positive thoughts for a whole day from TWO people, for only $5! That’s like 31 cents an hour! Surely there are laws against that kind of slave labor…
Until next time,
Dave
P.S. I’ve just discovered that the same couple has ANOTHER Fiverr offer available! For an additional $5, they will send positive “healing energy” TO YOUR PET throughout the day! Wow-ie! It’s so cheap, I feel a little guilty! I sent them this message: “Hi, I have some questions about the healing energy for pets. Does this work? Do you have any training in this area? Thank you for your time!” I’ll let you know when I hear back from them.
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Things change, Jed.
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
Word Origin & History:
matrimony
c.1300, from O.Fr. matremoine, from L. matrimonium “wedlock, marriage,” from matrem (nom. mater) “mother” + -monium, suffix signifying “action, state, condition.” Related: Matrimonial.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas HarperThe word matrimony honors women as mothers. Who are the mothers in these so-called same sex marriages? These perverts do not want to be mothers; they hate children and hate God, the source of life. Nor do they love one another. We need to restore the”holy” to holy matrimony.
My response (on his wall):
Things change, Jed. The year 1300 was 7 centuries ago. Even as a Christian, since you are a Protestant, you would almost certainly be burned at the stake for believing the things that you do today, if we were to go back to the 14th century. Christianity itself has changed immensely since then.
There is a difference between a change over time, and a perversion. Also, have you ever even met a gay person? It seems hard to believe that you have, given that you are saying things like “they hate children and hate God…” I know many gay Christians who love God and love children, and I know that you do, too, because some of the people I know are also some of the people you know.
Jed, I want you to think hard about what you are saying. You are getting to that age now, when thinking about what you will accomplish is lower on your list, and it’s time to start thinking about how you will be remembered. Your grandchildren are going to grow up viewing gay marriage the same way that people of my generation see interracial marriage: as nothing wrong or perverted at all, and as a beautiful way to demonstrate their love for each other publicly to the world. If you persist in these falsehoods, these lies about gay people about which I know you know better, you are going to be remembered as an intolerant bigot. You are going to be remembered the same way people of my generation remember racists who fought against desegregation. I just want you to think about that.
My real question is, why do you feel it necessary to lie about gay people, to demonize them in this way and assassinate their character? Are you afraid that being honest and telling the truth about them will somehow make them more human, more equal? We both know that gay people do not hate children. Why would you even say something like that, if not to demonize them? Is it because you don’t actually have any good reasons for disliking them and discriminating against them, so you have to resort to lies?
Please name one gay person who actually hates children and hates God. I would like very much to meet one, and ask him some questions, if he exists. Surely there are gay people who don’t WANT children of their own, but hating children is something different than not wanting kids, just like not believing your god exists is entirely different from “hating” your god.
Looking forward to your response.
Another person, Stephen S, also posted this, which I thought was great!
in lesbian marriages there are two mothers i hope this helps
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
No such thing as atheists?
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
I read this blog post by PZ Myers about Missouri representative Emanuel Cleaver. In a TV appearance, he said that there is “no such thing” as an atheist, because “no respectable atheist would walk around with something in his pocket that said ‘In God We Trust.’”
I wrote to Cleaver on his website about this. To send him your thoughts as well, click here. Below is what I wrote.
I caught part of your interview with Candy Crowley in which you said there’s no such thing as an atheist, and your reasoning for this was that “no respectable atheist would walk around with something in his pocket that said ‘In God We Trust.’”
My name is Dave Muscato and I’m an atheist. All that means is that I don’t believe any gods are actually real, the same way you and I both don’t believe Santa Claus is actually real.
Putting aside for the moment that your reasoning is a textbook example of a “No True Scotsman” logical fallacy, you may or may not know this, but the phrase “In God We Trust” was not added to US paper currency until 1957. You read that correctly. The phrase was added to our money as a religious response to the so-called “godless communists” during the Cold War.
I would greatly prefer to carry around US money that didn’t have this 1950s addition. Perhaps, as a lawmaker, you could take a stand for separation of church & state, and advocate that this phrase be removed from our currency?
In the meantime, I’ll make do with what’s issued, just like my fellow 25-million or so atheist Americans do.
I have to say that in Matthew 19:21, Jesus said, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions, and give the money to the poor.”
Using your logic, shouldn’t I say that there’s no such thing as a Christian, given that no respectable Christian should walk around with any money in his pocket at all?
I would love to hear back from you about this. Looking forward to your response,
Dave Muscato
Vice President, University of Missouri Skeptics, Atheists, Secular Humanists, & Agnostics
dave@davemuscato.com
Here is the relevant part of the interview:
Tell Cleaver what you think about this, and please copy & paste what you send him in the comment section below – I’d love to see it.
Until next time,
Dave
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Where do morals come from? Brother Jed is at it again…
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
Hello all!
Brother Jed posted a transcript of his opening statement from his Monday debate with Brandon Christen on his Facebook profile. In it, he repeated, nearly verbatim, an argument he made during his debate with me last April (see the 7-minute mark or so). We went over this last year quite thoroughly (I thought), and I’m disappointed to see he’s still trotting out the same, already-refuted argument. This appears to be, it seem sto me, a textbook example of intellectual dishonesty on his part.
Here’s the relevant bit to today’s post:
If there is no God, who or what is the source and foundation of morality? Morals deal with right and wrong in our interpersonal relationships. Morals are personal; the source of morals must be connected with a personal God, who himself is a subject of moral obligation and who chooses to use his great powers morally.
Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time. The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?
Men universally have a sense of moral obligation. “I ought; I ought not.” What is the source of moral obligation?
How, in a world which is ultimately the product of time, chance and material particles, did there come to be such things as moral obligations?
The existence of moral obligations makes more sense in a universe in which the ultimate reality is a moral Person than it does in a universe where persons are a late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces. The notion of morals requires a Moral Governor that Moral Governor is the God of the Bible.
I hardly know where to start with this. Here is what I have to say about it:
”Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time.”
I think you’re 1) confusing atheists with metaphysical naturalists and 2) forgetting that matter=energy and space=time.
“The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?”
You asked this exact same question last year at Speakers’ Circle and again during our debate last April, Jed. I have already given you a sufficient scientific response. I have recommended to you books that thoroughly answer this using abundant evidence. Your question is not a mystery to scientists and hasn’t been a mystery to scientists for quite awhile now; in fact the answer to this question is the point of an entire field of science called sociobiology. Some of the bigger names in research in this field are E.O. Wilson, Frans de Waal, Robert Axelrod, and Samuel Bowles. Others you might want to read, if you actually want to know the answer to this question rather than just sound profound for continuing to raise it to people who haven’t heard it before, are Michael Shermer and Matt Ridley. Again, I have already told you all of this.
I think you just like to say the phrase “late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces.” Just because morality is a byproduct of impersonal forces does not mean that it’s insignificant. That’s a claim YOU’RE making, not a claim scientists have made.
You insist – and persist – in attempting to paint the origin of morality like it’s some huge mystery that has no possible earthly explanation, and therefore MUST have come from your god, while simultaneously completely ignoring the scientific explanation I repeatedly provide to you every time you bring this up.
Do you just not care that science has actually answered this question?
Evolution is sufficient to explain morality in cooperative animals, humans included. We have WAY more evidence than the minimum to demonstrate that this is the case. I recommend the books “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley and “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution” by Samuel Bowles if you are actually interested in the scientific answer to your question, “How does the moral come from the stuff that is non-moral?” This is an extremely well-documented concept in science.
Again, to be absolutely clear, how morals arise naturally from impersonal forces is NOT a mystery for scientists. Just because you don’t understand (or refuse to look at) where morality came from scientifically does not mean that, therefore, natural elements are insufficient to explain it.
What you are saying here is known in logic as an argument from incredulity. You are essentially saying, “I don’t understand how morality could have come about naturally. Therefore, morality must not have come about naturally.” This is a fallacy. We can readily show how morality comes about naturally, and in fact have done this in abundance in controlled settings. There’s LOTS of absolutely fascinating research that combines the game theory of economics with evolutionary biology to demonstrate it quite readily, in fact.
I would really love for this to be the last time we go through this dog & pony show, but I have a feeling you’re not even going to read this, let alone read the books I recommended. I like you, Jed, but you’ve been stuck on this idea that morals must have come from a god for at least several years now. Do you continue to raise the question because, after considering the evidence, you find the scientific explanation insufficient [in which case, what are your scientific objections]? Or have you just not even looked into it? The latter is my guess.
If you want to know where morals came from, read “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley, so we can finally put this to bed. Where morals came from is not a mystery to science, and it has nothing to do with your god. Science has answered this question; it’s time to put this to bed.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Remember this one for debates!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
Been really sick the past few days, and I apologize for the lack of updates. Here is one to hold you over, and frankly, it says it all:
Pro tip: This goes for any text, not just the Bible or other “holy” texts.
As a reminder, Rick Santorum and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson will be speaking in Columbia today (Friday) at 4 PM. Here is the SASHA Facebook event if you have questions for them!
Also don’t forget that on Sunday at 10 AM, we’re having our monthly “Alternative Church” with coffee, bagels, and the Columbia Atheists group. Check out our Facebook group for more details.
New articles coming soon!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
An excellent example of what’s wrong with the fine-tuning case for a creator-god
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
I’ve written before on this blog about the problems with the fine-tuning argument, and last time, I took some criticism for failing to address the anthropic principle. I did say right off the bat that there are many ways to demonstrate why this argument is wrong, and rather than attempt to present an exhaustive list, I was only going to write about 3 of my favorite counters, which I did. I agree with my readers, and with Richard Dawkins as well (as discussed in The God Delusion), that the anthropic principle is also an easy way to show why fine-tuning doesn’t hold water, and it could have well made it into the top three. I’m very grateful to my readers for your honest criticism, and agree with you that this counter-argument deserves attention, which I will address now.
If you’re not familiar, fine-tuning is simply the idea that, because conditions sufficient for life to arise are (it is claimed) so narrowly specific, they MUST have come about by intelligent design. First of all, claiming certainty on this point (“must have”) introduces an epistemological problem, the problem of induction, so at best deists/theists can argue that, based on available evidence, they believe that intelligent design is the most probable explanation, not that it MUST have been intelligent design (although you will rarely hear them admit this). This is an example of the fallacy of a false dilemma, also known as black-and-white thinking, i.e. failing to recognize other possible alternatives (in this case, that the universe created itself, which is also in better accordance with Occam’s Razor; see my previous article about parsimony here).
The idea that fine-tuning is the best explanation for the conditions of our universe has been thoroughly discredited by many qualified physicists, among them Vic Stenger, Brian Cox, and Stephen Hawking, and this information is readily available on Google. However, it’s important that we continue to address the topic because I still hear this hypothesis from believers literally every time we do our Ask an Atheist table on campus. Usually their information comes from theologians, or youth pastors, or at best, mathematicians, chemists, etc, not qualified astrophysicists or cosmologists. I’m convinced it’s just a matter of ignorance and confirmation bias, which are fortunately fixable things.
Aside from the fact that the universe is not actually fine-tuned for life (quite the opposite!), the ultimate problem with this line of reasoning is that it’s backwards—it reverses the order of things. The universe was not set up the way it is with us in mind, but rather, we are the type of thing that our universe grows, given enough time. This is even more obvious when you consider that the universe was here WAY before we grew out of it. As the ancient Buddhist proverb goes, “We are the universe experiencing itself.”
So, on to the subject of today’s article: the Anthropic Principle. Simply put, the anthropic principle is the idea that the universe is set up the way it is in order that we could exist here (rather than the idea that we are set up the way we are and indeed exist all because of the way the universe is set up). There are some other, more-specific versions of this argument, but that’s the basic idea. Douglas Adams famously said in a 1998 speech:
Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!” This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there’s plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that’s a very dangerous thing to say.
Or, put another way:
Here’s a direct link to the website of the newspaper, the Northwest Indiana Times, where this letter appeared. Here’s a link to the comments section (some are rather amusing).
I should hope that I don’t need to spell this out, but in the interest of curing ignorance—the reason we run this blog—I want to be absolutely sure the point is made clearly: The deer about which Tim Abbott is complaining do not cross the street where they do because the deer-crossing sign is there, as if it were a crosswalk; rather, we put the sign there because that’s where the deer already tended to cross the street. The order here is important; the deer were there long before the highway, freely moving across that area. When we humans built the highway, the deer continued to move across that area, incidentally crossing the highway as they went and causing traffic accidents, and so, we put up a sign to warn drivers that deers cross there. It’s not a crosswalk, and deer don’t know or care about the deer-crossing sign—they crossed there before the highway was around, they crossed there before the sign was added, and they would continue to cross there whether we moved the sign or not.
Similarly, to the best of our knowledge—and we emphatically have no good reasons thus far to suspect otherwise—the universe does not know or care that we happened to have developed in it. The universe does not “know” or “care” about anything; the universe is not an intelligent entity capable of knowledge or feelings.
To assign human qualities like the capacity for knowledge or feelings to an object is what’s called anthropomorphism. This is incredibly common in human cultures, but it’s erroneous—other examples include thinking things like “My car hates me” or saying “Thank you!” to your computer when you are able to recover a file you thought you lost. Computers and cars, even though some people might give them personal names for fun, are not intelligent agents—they are inanimate objects (from the Latin prefix in- meaning lacking or without, and the Latin word anima meaning breath of life/life-blood).
Michael Shermer writes about this in The Believing Brain: When lightning strikes your house, it’s not because anyone is angry at you, gods or otherwise; it’s (very predictably and avoidably) because your house doesn’t have a lightning rod and is the tallest conductive thing nearby. This is why church steeples get struck by lightning so often; it has nothing to do with the Devil and God battling it out in the heavens. It’s just physics. But that’s awesome! Physics is amazing and interesting stuff, and by learning how our world works, to paraphrase Neil DeGrasse Tyson, we can improve our lives.
Until next time!
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
God vs. Cashiers
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
I believe that religion devalues human life. All human life, not just the lives of the religious practitioners. I think that religion indoctrinates innocent people to waste their minds and under-appreciated their lives, their family’s lives, their friend’s lives, and the lives of total strangers as well. If you disagree with that viewpoint and want to know just why I hold it, you’ll be disappointed here; this blog post is not one wherein I seek to affirm that position. I will, however, post on that position later.
Rather, in this post I will take one group of people who (in my experience) are some of the most under-appreciated people out there, and highlight three reasons I believe they are more worthy of our appreciation and love than the God of the Bible.
I want to talk about why the cashiers at Wal-Mart are more important to you than God.
1.) The Cashier is genuinely helping you.
Did the cashier create a manufactured problem and then demand that you take steps to fix it? Did they come into your home, rob you of your supplies, and then demand that you return to Wal-Mart to purchase more in order to avoid starving to death? No, of course they didn’t! Matter of fact, there’s a good chance you don’t even know them beyond the name printed on their nametag; and they don’t know you, either.
God, we are supposed to believe, knows each of us perfectly. If you’re really gullible, you may think he knew us before time even began (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean). However, God set things up in Genesis knowing Adam and Eve would fail and also knowing that the rest of us would sin in their footsteps. He knew from the start that every human being would be in peril of going to hell, but he made the world in a way to accommodate that threat anyway. In short: he’s a prick. He manufactured the problem, then tried to force us to take the “medicine,” which would supposedly be Jesus.
At least the cashier isn’t stuffing you into a problem and then demanding you ask for their help to get out! No, they’re just there to try to help you with problems that you have in one of life’s basic little areas; buying your groceries. But still, when you think about it, that’s more than God ever really does…
2.) The Cashier can affirm you as a human being.
As human beings, we all need interaction with our fellow humans. It’s simply part of what it is to be human. Without interaction with other humans, we quickly start losing our grip on who we are and begin desperately inventing things to talk to (a la Wilson from “Cast Away”). Whenever you pass through a cashier’s line at Wal-Mart, they will at least talk to you and, in so doing, acknowledge your existence has some value. Most of them will even smile and try to make a bit of small-talk.
Now God, on the other hand, if he is real, seems to habitually avoid us. It’s as if he’s the cosmic version of that friend whom you know could answer their phone, but they let it go to voicemail anyway. Believers beg, plead, beseech, and pray all year long, but not once do the clouds part and reveal any attention to validate their actions. Instead, they’re left desperately trying to link disparate events and say it was “God’s work.” That’s a horrible, pathetic reward for so much time spent in prayer. God never speaks to us, smiles at us, laughs with us, or asks us how are day is…all things which, for an omnipotent being, would be infinitely easy to do.
But Wal-Mart cashiers do! I’ve had many chats with them, and I’ve seen others do the same. I’ve seen them smile at me, genuinely laugh at my jokes, and engage in at least somewhat meaningful small-talk. I was a Christian for years and years and never got that sort of treatment from God! When you walk out of Wal-Mart (and if you were lucky enough to get one of the good cashiers) you can, silly as it may sound, feel a bit more like a part of an interconnected community of shared meaning. Again, that’s more than you can say for God…
3.) You can know that cashiers are real.
When it comes to knowledge, it is a tricky business. I’m of the school of thought that we cannot ever 100% know anything; there are for us only degrees of certainty resulting in justified belief.
Still, even taking into account all the Cartesian possibilities, there is more certainty and a greater justifiability in believing that cashiers are real beings than believing that God is a real being. That being the case, there is more reason to give them your acknowledgment, respect, and appreciation. God, on the other hand, is purely hypothetical. Anyone who claims to know he exists (they can be identified online as the ones typing that they KNOW in ALL CAPS, which is OBNOXIOUS) actually only means that they really really really believe he exists; they are convicted in that belief. fervently held belief does not actually count as real knowledge. The fact that we can do tests to show that cashiers are real stands high against the fact that we can do nothing to give even an ounce of credibility to the claim that God is real, not matter how sincerely that claim is made.
So, as real beings just like you, cashiers deserve at least some of our respect and appreciation. They are, after all, our fellow humans, citizens, and sometimes even neighbors. They help us, and they sometimes even try to make our visit to Wal-Mart more pleasant. They are more helpful to you and more apparently real than any god has ever been.
So, the next time you go to Wal-Mart (or any other store) and you’re in the checkout line, smile and talk to your cashier. After all, they’re more important than God!
_________________________________________________________________________
SASHA blog guest contributor Brandon Christen, a former Church of Christ preacher-turned-atheist, was born and raised in Missouri. He grew up in a religious family, and joined a far-right conservative church when he was a senior in college. For almost six years, the church dominated all facets of his life and thinking until, in early 2010, he began to openly question its steadfast rejection of science and philosophy. After a protracted struggle with his convictions, Brandon became an atheist in September of that year. These days Brandon remains intensely interested in religion, focusing on religious versus secular moral and ethical issues. Brandon frequently engages in conversations with as many religious individuals as he can in a “grass roots” effort to spread awareness about secular morality. He also acts as a strong voice in the Secular Student Alliance at the University of Central Missouri. While he sees debunking religious falsehoods as important, Brandon’s ultimate focus is on becoming a professional philosopher and emphasizing in ethics so as to lend his voice to the attempt to heal the moral divide between believers and non-believers.
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
CS Lewis says Christian marriages are maintained by God? Well, He’s doing a piss-poor job, then.
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
_________________________________________________________________________
A friend of mine, KLH, posted this quotation, attributed to CS Lewis, on his Facebook wall:
“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling… Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go… But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from “being in love” — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriage) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God… “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”
- C.S. Lewis
For those interested, I was able to find the source for this on page 63 of The Complete CS Lewis Signature Classics, within the Mere Christianity section, Harper Collins, 2002.
Here is my response:
Interesting quotation. Do you think that’s really true? I ask because, according to the Associated Press, the highest divorce rates are in the Bible Belt (as cited in the link below). This is from ReligiousTolerance.org:
“Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.”
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm
These figures are a little old (10ish years), but then again so is that quote from CS Lewis.
Some of the reasons for this are likely related to the younger age at which conservatives tend to get married (increasing the likelihood that they are not ready and rushing into a decision they will regret), and because of the idea that sex should be reserved for marriage (who wants to wait until they are 25 to have sex? (See above link for sources). In reality, 95% of Americans admit to having premarital sex; that may actually be even higher because conservative Christians, who don’t tend to be very willing to talk about their sex lives with random telephone pollsters, may be lying).
Source: Most Americans have premarital sex, study finds (2006)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-12-19-premarital-sex_x.htmAlso, teen pregnancy rates are highest in the South and among conservative Christians, because of pushes for abstinence-only education:
Source: See page 13 (2010 study of 2005-6 data)
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/USTPtrends.pdf
“Purity rings,” celibacy pledges, etc have been shown to delay sex in teens by only 3-4 months versus teaching how to use condoms and safe-sex practices, and in those cases, teens are more likely to get pregnant because they don’t tend to use protection if they’re not taught how. This article from TIME says that teens are just as likely to have sex regardless of whether they make a virginity pledge or not, and those who do make one are significantly less-likely to use protection:Source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1868990,00.html
It seems that the idea that Christian marriages are maintained by God, as CS Lewis suggests here, is really pretty skewed. If God is helping to maintain Christian marriages, he is actually doing a *worse* job at it than non-Christians are doing on their own!
If you’re interested in this topic, I highly recommend you check out this 1-hour talk from the Skepticon conference by researcher Darrel Ray, based on his brand-new book, “Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality.”
Here’s the book:
and here’s the video of the talk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83P6epN1e9w
Here is the 46-page PDF study on which the book is based, which includes TONS of fascinating charts, graphs, and hard data that he and his research partner collected and put together for the book:
His response:
I quote it because it’s interesting, but not because I’ve experienced it. Even if it is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s rarely lived out.
[Correction: Darrel Ray has informed me that the PDF study linked above is only the basis of one chapter of the book, not the basis of the whole book, which has many other chapters as well. Thanks, Darrel!]
Until next time,
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
