Here we are at part 3 of my discussing with some Atheists on YouTube. This discussion emerged because of a video I posted as a part of the MarketFaith Ministry efforts to share about some of the practical implications of worldview. I produce these as a resource for Christians who are interested in the ministry, but occasionally people who disagree with me will see one of these and start a discussion.
Recently I posted a video called Now Christians are Haters? This one was about how the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, was attacked by those on the political left because of his Christian beliefs. You can view the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgFnMUnuMN0&lc=UgwUKe2E-JOpq_Qjf4B4AaABAg.A0emz0XzEG7A0jyM_FSviv.
You can see parts one and two of this conversation at:
http://www.marketfaith.org/2024/03/youtube-discussion-with-atheists-1/
http://www.marketfaith.org/2024/03/youtube-discussion-with-atheists-2/
[Note: The names have been changed, except for my own, so that those I was interacting with cannot be personally identified. Also, these conversations are copied exactly as they were posted without making grammatical, spelling, punctuation, or any other changes except where it was absolutely necessary to make it clear.]
Part 3 begins here:
SW
freddydavis, I don’t feel the need to justify my moral system, every single time I say that something hurting someone else is bad. Just because a moral judgement is entailed in a situation, does not justify a full moral debate, every time a moral judgement happens.
I don’t do the same to you, but then you’re a Christian, so I don’t have high expectations of your moral system. I could be surprised, as Christians certainly can develop a good system in spite of the flaws in their religion.
In the field of science, the debate over the “truth of evolution” is long settled. Two laymen debating over the science, settles nothing. There is plenty of material out there about evolution. So if you can’t find it yourself, maybe I could help you a bit. But I am not a science educator, so it would be a bit odd. I also have doubts as to your receptivity, so am hesitant to consider it worth the trouble.
I am aware of countless Christians making claims like you have. I am also aware, that every single time their claims are investigated, if there is any science involved at all, it falls apart quickly. I hate to break it to you, but some apologists lie. Especially in times when they have strong motivations.
So when I hear someone like you say, there is no science backing up macroevolution, the only options I see are ignorance, or dishonesty. Personally I am inclined to be charitable and think it more likely to be ignorance. It’s quite amazing to me how many people put excessive trust in perceived authorities, without putting the effort into checking for themselves.
Freddy Davis
SW, Well hello, SW. I didn’t think I would be hearing from you again.
Actually, since you are asserting your moral system and dismissing mine, you do need to justify it. What makes your opinion about morality better than everyone else … since it is just your opinion? I’m not asking you to justify any particular moral position you take. I am asking you to justify the very basis upon which you make moral judgments at all. You can try to sidestep that if you want, but it is difficult to take someone’s moral pronouncements seriously who doesn’t even have a reason for making them. Here you are judging my moral beliefs by saying you “don’t have high expectations” of it, yet here you are judging me based on …. Well, I don’t know yet what you are basing it on. You haven’t said.
You can pretend that the “truth of evolution” is long settled, but that is simply false on its face. You can call me ignorant or dishonest all day long, but until you can show me the science that demonstrates that it is possible for less complex life forms to evolve to more complex ones, your assertions are meaningless. No scientist anywhere has ever demonstrated that to be true. They assume it and make pronouncements about “how it must have happened,” but they have never demonstrated it to be true. The entire theory is built upon philosophical naturalism – which is a belief system (not a scientific system) that has never (and can never) be proven to be true using its own presuppositions. Talk about putting one’s “trust in perceived authorities without putting the effort into checking for themselves.”
I really don’t get why you have doubts about my receptivity to looking into the truth of naturalistic evolution. While you have alluded to the fact that you don’t really delve much into that, I can assure you that I have – and do. I am not a scientist, but I do read a lot of what “evolutionary scientists” produce, and I can assure you, most of that is not actual science at all, but is speculation based on their total acceptance of philosophical naturalism. I assure you, I am quite qualified to deal in that arena.
I’m not sure I understand what you are talking about regarding claims Christians have made. What claims are you talking about and what investigations of those claims are you referring to that fall apart when investigated? It is difficult to respond to statements that have no content.
You may dismiss out of hand my assertion that God exists and that you can know Him in a personal relationship, but I assure you it is true. It seems that you have done way less looking into the validity of my beliefs than I have of yours.
SW
freddydavis, You seemed so interested in moral questions, I decided to come and give some of my thoughts.
I am not convinced that the foundations for morality in Christianity, and atheism, are that different in functionality.
There are of course claims and beliefs that they are very different, but I am looking at what happens in reality.
The bible doesn’t even provide objective moral law. Sure it provides some rules. But these are all rules that need evaluation before acceptance.
Christians might like to highlight the less controversial commandments, like about killing and stealing where we agree. However there’s quite a list of commandments of laws most Christians have firmly rejected, from wearing mixed fabrics, to killing unruly children. The rules have to be considered and justified. The actual foundation, goes past the bible and into their process of justifying it.
You can’t even meaningfully read the bible without a process of evaluating it.
Of Course Christians like to point to God as the ultimate source, but I’m considering where things actually come from and through
Consider this thought experiment. If you were to come across a passage in the bible that you were previously unaware of, where the bible explicitly told you to kick every dog you came across, would you simply incorporate that rule, or would you consider it’s morality first?
The biggest difference I see, is that I don’t see the bible as a needed step. And since the bible doesn’t provide something objective in this subject, what they describe as their moral system, and what it is, don’t seem the same.
That said, i have no problem with looking in the bible searching for wisdom. Nor do I have a problem with looking in other religion’s books for it. I of course don’t assume everything I would find to be wise, but I’m not sure anyone would.
Christians have always been evaluating the bible, and morality, at least barring those ones that would simply listen to and trust everything their pastor tells them, without any reflection. But of course they aren’t getting things from the bible, they are getting them from a pastor.
As to what provides a foundation for my morality, while the subtleties of morality can get complicated, the foundations are less so. I think empathy, pragmatism, and the desire to live in a society, get you there pretty easily.
Not wanting to live in a society where people do certain things, provides us enough to say we shouldn’t do those certain things.
Freddy Davis
SW, Actually, it is not so much that I am interested in moral questions. What I am interested in is the source of morality. There is no objective morality in Atheism. It is based purely on the personal preferences of those who are able to dominate.
As for your comments about the Bible, your entire approach is in error. You are attempting to evaluate the Bible and Christianity based on your naturalistic presuppositions, and that simply cannot work. As opposed to your statement, the Bible doesn’t provide objective moral law, it provides objective moral principles that guide those who follow God. There is a HUGE difference. The concept of moral laws as you have expressed it must be imposed from an outside source, and is based on a legalistic approach to morality. Biblical moral principles, on the other hand, begin internally, and the outward expressions are based on a relational (as opposed to legalistic) approach. Even if you don’t believe it, you will have to come to grips with the Christian understanding that God is an objectively real person who can be known in an objectively real personal relationship if you want to understand the beliefs of Christians. Until you do that, you will continue to make the same errors you have been making in trying to characterize Christianity and Christians.
For objective morality to exist, there must be a moral law giver. And in the Christian faith, that moral law giver is a person. Thus, morality is lived out in relationship, not in legalistic adherence. That is something that doesn’t/can’t exist in Atheism, and it is something you, yourself, will never fully grasp until you grasp the personal nature of the Christian faith.
Your comment about “where things actually come from and through” is, obviously, your attempt to interpret biblical Theism based on naturalistic beliefs. As I said, you simply can’t do that (in the same way that I can’t evaluate your Atheism based on theistic beliefs). For the Christian faith, God IS the ultimate source, and that is possible because He objectively exists and can personally relate to human beings. Until you look at Christian beliefs from a biblical worldview perspective, you will never understand. The two different belief foundations represent entirely different ways of understanding reality.
Because of what I just said, your dog example does not apply. It doesn’t correspond at all to biblical teachings. Neither does your evaluation of the nature of the Bible. You are continuing to look at God as some kind of impersonal something and the Bible as just another human generated book among all of the human moral books that are out there. That understanding simply does not reflect a Christian understanding. Nothing you have written in your last post comes even close to reflecting the actual beliefs and teachings of Christianity. Rather than trying to show what you think are the flaws in Christianity, if you really want to win me over, you are going to have to prove that your beliefs are true using your own naturalistic beliefs. Do that and I will convert. But until you do, your naturalistic worldview beliefs are found lacking.
So, you think empathy, pragmatism, and the desire to live in a society are the foundation for your morality. Well, that’s all well and good, but are you willing to impose that on everyone else? What about people who might disagree with you – Hitler or Stalin, for instance. They had a vision for creating utopia on earth, as well. They just saw a different road for getting to it than you. Since, based on naturalistic worldview beliefs, human beings have to make morality up for themselves, what makes your approach right and theirs wrong? I get that you have your preference, but what makes yours morally right as opposed to theirs?
SW
freddydavis, You are correct that I don’t believe in objective morality. Unlike you, I consider that a feature rather than a bug. A static form of morality dictated from some external source, is not as functional or useful. It also has the problem that if it is wrong, correcting it is a problem,
I am sure that you say the source of your morality is God, but what does that mean in functional morality judgements. How exactly are you claiming to know that claimed source, enough to make it a useful standard? Side note. I have noticed that Christians like to talk up knowing God well, in cases like this. Yet when scenarios are less positive, God is mysterious, and vast beyond human understanding.
The two possible ways that I know of, would be the bible, and prayer. Since prayer includes no effective way to distinguish some message from God, from an internal source in our mind, I disregard that as lacking any weight. Which leads to the bible as I referred to it.
You say that the bible provides objective moral principles. I would like to see that demonstrated.
Are these objective principles such that God needs to follow them? I am hoping that you are familiar with the Euthyphro dilemma.
As I said, it is not hard to find in the bible, some firm morals on basic things such as murder and theft. Where, and what are the objective principles that actually distinguish Christian morality in a superior way? Though I am not even sure that the bible is sufficient to determine the morality of killing or theft, in a nuanced way.
I do not think that I Impose my morals on others, aside from perhaps at a social discussion level. I consider dictating morals onto others to be a bad practice. I imagine you might argue there is imposition when social order requires stepping in when people misbehave, but I see that as better driven by stopping people from doing harm, rather than imposing morality.
As to what happens when there are strong disagreements about moral questions, that is one of the functions of society. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we actually have cases where people don’t agree about moral issues. That is reality.
Stopping a bloodthirsty dictator is something we do to protect ourselves and those we care about. Dwelling on whether we agree with their morals, might have some value in some philosophy class delving into moral systems. But in the real world, dwelling on asking how moral Hitler was, doesn’t serve much purpose.
In the case that there is significant disagreement, this does mean that social discourse is needed before consensus, or compromise can be reached. This is sort of an inherent property of a functional society.
On the other hand, when I ask a Christian why they say abortion is murder. As often as not, they say the bible says so, and consider that the end of the conversation. Never mind that the bible doesn’t say so. Conversation stopping claims resolve nothing.
Freddy Davis
SW, But why is doing harm a bad thing if it allows you to accomplish what you want in life? After all, there is no such thing as right and wrong morality according to your naturalistic belief. All we have is the law of the jungle. We impose our will as much as possible on the world to get all of the personal fulfillment we can in this life, and then we die. There is nothing else. I am actually glad of one thing, that you at last have stated overtly the implications of your atheistic beliefs. That is all naturalistic belief has to offer.
That said, you still have no grasp whatsoever of biblical faith, and you certainly have no concept of who the God of the Bible is. It is interesting reading your pontifications on that subject, but it is completely wrong. You are still evaluating Christianity based on naturalistic thought, and it is simply wrong. Based on Christian belief, a person’s relationship with God has nothing to do with “functional morality judgments.” It is all about relationship. God loves us and we love Him. Of course, that kind of concept has no place in a naturalistic universe, so even loving another person and giving yourself to them because of love really doesn’t fit. After all, our feelings of love are nothing more than electrical and chemical reactions, and our sense of loving is basically an incredible illusion based on the processing of various stimuli in the brain. While it is pretty difficult to avoid the feelings we have in that arena, in an objective sense, love stands outside of actual reality based on Naturalism. After all, we are only animals. It is just that we have a more highly evolved brain that is able to process information better. But ultimately, we can only do what animals do, right? On the other side, biblical beliefs take seriously our various personhood characteristics. We really are self-aware beings who have the capacity of free will and self-awareness, and objectively real love.
The Bible, contrary to your characterization is not simply a book of morals. It is God’s revelation of Himself and His ways. It is not merely a rule book or guidebook, it reveals God to us and how we can know and interact with Him. And the basis for morality is not in the book; God Himself is the standard for morality. We just learn what that is in the book. Our life goal is to become more like Him. We will never reach that kind of perfection this side of eternity, but because we love Him, we strive toward that goal. Your criticism of Christians who fall short of that is completely off base. Of course we fall short. We have a sin nature that works against it. But in knowing God, we connect with Him in a way that gives us ability to grow toward His perfection, and we do it because we love Him.
You really should quit criticizing the Christian faith until you know enough about it to make accurate statements. It is a bad look. Even if you never accept Christ, there is no excuse for mischaracterizing the faith, then using that mischaracterization to criticize Christians.
And just because some people are not well enough versed to give you the best answers to the things you are critical of, does not mean there are not answers. If you are not getting good answers, man up and find someone who can actually deal with the subject. Taking the example of your unfounded criticism, abortion is murder because it is the unjust taking of an innocent human life. The value of human life is another one of those Christian principles that you seem to want to criticize. God created life, and He made human life “in His image.” As such, He places the highest value on it. He values it so much that He came to earth as a human for the express purpose of sacrificing Himself to take care of the sin problem I was referring to earlier. Based on your comment, an unborn human is obviously not considered an actual human life, but it is – both in God’s eyes and in the eyes of science.
The fact is, naturalistic philosophy simply is not true. It doesn’t correctly reflect the nature of ultimate reality nor the nature of man, and it provides for no purpose in life. It is a dead end street.
Ultimately you have to make your own decision about what you will do with your life, but I sincerely pray that one day you will come to know a personal relationship with God and experience the personal inner peace and life purpose that He gives.
SW
freddydavis, It is indeed not worthwhile trying to engage with you about morality, nor have you demonstrated any foundations for yours, aside from your feelings. Claiming that makes for objective morality is quite sad. The only answer you gave, as I expected, was faith, and vague allusions to bible stories. And for every heart warming story of Jesus healing the blind, or teaching children, we can contrast with stories of genocides and curses. It is not an impressive standard.
To make this even more ironic you choose to twist interpretations of the bible about the categorization of an unborn child in the bible. Nowhere in the bible does it say it is a living human. At best you can quote vague passages, like God knowing us in the womb, as if that indicates anything relevant. The people that wrote the bible did not believe a child was alive until after it was born, and breathed. Of course you can try and twist their words, but when you fail to know such basic issues, why should I take your assertions seriously?
I am entirely unimpressed by a man accusing me of ignorance about his religion, when he can’t manage to know his own bible. To be fair, the bible does make it hard to have solid understandings, but you’re the person making claims about it’s objectivity.
Freddy Davis
SW, Seriously? I can understand why you might be getting frustrated talking about morality since you don’t have any objective foundation to stand on, but it is quite rich you lecturing me on the Christian faith. I have two advanced degrees in theology, I teach world religions at a university, and have written dozens of articles and numerous books on the subject. You might want to reconsider your comment about me not knowing the Bible. I can definitely go deeper regarding the foundations of Christian Theism, though at this point you are not even understanding the shallow basics, so I’m not sure how fruitful that would be. You are the one who has no idea how to interpret the Bible.
I actually have demonstrated for you already an objective foundation for my faith. The fact that you dismiss it out of hand without any objective reason to so does not mean I have not shared it with you. One thing is that you don’t even seem to understand the very concept of faith. Just because our understanding of reality is based on faith (yours, as well as mine) does not mean it is blind faith. There is evidence to be brought to bear when people deal with this topic. While people do have feelings regarding their faith, my faith is not based on feelings. I don’t know where you get that. It is simply a false statement. There is all kind of evidence – empirical, logical, and experiential. All you have done here is demonstrate that you have no idea what you are even talking about.
You also have misrepresented the teachings of the Bible. For one thing, you are attempting to judge the Bible (and Christianity) based on the bad actions of people who did not follow the teachings of the Bible. That is simply wrong. If you are going to judge the faith, then you judge it on its own teachings, not on how people act. Are you aware that more genocide has been committed in the name of Atheism than in all of the other religions in the history of the world? Would it be right for me to conclude, because of that, that Atheists are genocidal? How silly would that be? Your argument on that front is simply bogus.
And once again (we have been over this several times but you still don’t seem to grasp it) you are attempting to interpret the Bible based on a hermeneutical methodology that is simply wrong. You have completely ignored biblical theology and are trying to interpret the Bible based on naturalistic worldview beliefs. That simply is not legit. Specifically, you referenced the nature of an unborn child, yet completely ignored the overall teachings of the Bible. It also doesn’t say in the Bible we have toenails, but we do. What you are characterizing as “vague” is anything but. A principle about the human person is actually expressed here, and more importantly, we see the value of human life is once again expressed. (And we haven’t even touched on how science demonstrates that a preborn child is a living human.)
What you have still failed to account for is the validity of your naturalistic worldview – the belief that the natural universe, operating by natural laws, is all that exists. So, I am going to give you an opportunity to do that. All you have to do is answer four simple questions giving the actual science that backs up your answers. This is actually necessary in order to demonstrate that Naturalism is true and not merely some religious faith. In fact, if you are able to do this, I will actually convert to your point of view. If you can’t though, your naturalistic faith falls apart.
1. How do you account for the existence of the matter and energy that exists in the natural universe?
2. How do you account for the existence of life?
3. How do you account for the variety of life forms that exist on the earth?
4. How do you account for the existence of consciousness (including human self consciousness)?
If God does not exist, then you might have some arguments to make. But He does. Just because you are running away from Him does not change that fact. He actually loves you and is willing to accept you into His family, even now. He is holding the door open, but you have to make the choice to enter. If you do, you will step into a world that you can’t now see because of your denial.
This conversation continues and will pick up from this point in part 4.