Atheists point to "the problem of evil" as a reason to do away with theism, but more pointedly, Christianity. There's evil in the world, so either the "loving God" isn't all powerful, or the "all-powerful God" isn't loving. This has been volleyed around plenty of times by authors and philosophers, so I don't want to spend too much time on it. My question in response would be (though not my own original thought), define evil. Christopher Hitchens loves to spat the question "by what right?" to call into question Christianity's authority. Doesn't the same question call into question his, or rather, the authority he cites to make such a claim? For me, the most compelling problem atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and countless blogging and "youtubing" atheists face is the problem of morality.
My first introduction to this topic came my freshman year of college (though in JC, the term "freshman" is like calling a Starbucks employee a 'partner' or an Office Max worker an 'associate'). The professor in my class, Philosophy of Religion, opened the first day of class by saying "I do not believe in moral absolutes. As long as what a person chooses to do does not harm another, it is universally good for them to do so." Being 18, my mind didn't immediately snap to what it later arrived at: she was making a morally absolute statement. She put up moral parameters like what I observed, she simply moved her fences in closer together. By saying "as long as (what a person chooses to do) does not harm someone another"she was making the moral statement that causing someone harm is wrong. Furthermore, she was implying she held to a concrete definition of the word "harm" and stood against it.
That was fine by me, because I wasn't the one up there saying I didn't believe in moral absolutes. It did, however, help me realize the importance of properly framing an argument. Had I chosen to argue a set group of points, i.e., "there are too moral absolutes because the Bible says so" or everyone knows cheating is wrong" or anything else they may have immediately made sense to me, it would have taken us (and I'm betting, the class) down a road that runs right into her worldview. But my stopping the movie as the credits still roll, she must qualify what she said.
She implied a standard. Without a standard for morality, it simply cannot exist. Saying "history shows that morality is a vital part of the evolution of society" implies that such a statement can be qualified (how I'd love to introduce someone who holds that view to a Viking) and that "morality" is, again, agreed upon even without a standard by which to measure it.
The first thing a communist regime does is eliminate the existing government. The second thing it does is eliminate religion. In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins writes about how "no atheist in the world would bulldoze Mecca- or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame . . . ." His point being that the atheist movement would never try and destroy religion by force, yet one needs only to look back at Stalin's Russia. In December of 1931 he ordered the largest church in Russia, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, dynamited in broad daylight as thousands of stupefied citizens watched (David Aikman's The Delusion of Disbelief). See, the most notorious atheists of the last century: Joseph Stalin (16 million), Adolf Hitler (11 million), Mao Tse-Tung (14 million) and Pol Pot (4 million) murdered a combined 45 million people. That's just slightly more than the 3,000 people who died in the Spanish Inquisition. Why does it matter that these men were all atheists? Well, they had the same standard (or absence of).
The point of this blog the evils of atheism (though I'm not denying them).
My point is: you say the murder of these 45 million people plus the 3,000 of the Inquisition was evil and wrong? By what right?
Unless you can explicitly point out references that prove each of these individuals were inspired to commit mass murder specifically on account of being an atheist - your last point is pretty weak. This seems to be, IMHO, guilt by association combined with assuming/neglecting common causes.
ReplyDeletePooling Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot (etc etc) into one big basket of fun is hardly proof that 'atheists' as a whole are innately predispositioned towards 'evil'. These guys were, while not being able to directly prove this but at the same time I think we can all agree, certifiable nut-jobs. This isn't explicitly because they were atheist - which is where your argument loses weight. I think it is definitely arguable that, these guys were more inclined toward mass murder through their psyche which may have been derived from their chaotic childhoods.
I'd also like to point out that comparing the sum of recent major atrocities to one christan incident is hardly unbiased. If we were to take into account the amount of deaths due to the explicit 'lack of morality' of atheism vs the amount of deaths due to the conviction of ANY religion (and therefore 'morality' by definition) - you might have something to argue. Unfortunately defining morality is a philosophical topic that is not necessarily quantitative in addition to the fact that people would not be specifically characterizable as 'not moral', 'moral', 'moral in context', etc etc. Point being that, your last argument is innately flawed due to the variability naturally found in humanity.
Ugh I hate debating stuff like this but I just wanted to point out some problems in your post. Glad to see you've started the blog finally. Hope you keep it up.
Couple things Ill leave you with:
1 death is an [atrocity]; 1,000,000 deaths are a statistic. ~Stalin
'The truth is out there'... In my opinion it would be easier to find if you look for it from a different perspective. Then again I subscribe to the idea of Falsifiability. ;)
Best,
~Ty
Ty, I don't have time to address this right now, but all four were atheists and remember, my point is that no atheist can denounce the mass murder without a standard. Remember, just because societies say something is good or bad, without a standard higher than than mankind itself, you've got a consensus, not a standard. All a consensus needs is a majority. I'll give you my sources and reply at length soon. My point about the 45 million from just 4 atheist will stand. People use talking points about "religion caused all this, etc" but look into it. Give examples as I have. You'll be surprised. One last thing, I never said atheists were "predisposed to evil", I simply said, by their own admission, they can't call anything evil. I'm very happy and ready to defend this to the fullest. I'm glad you and I have the opportunity to talk about it. It'll be good. More soon.
ReplyDelete-Steve (too lazy to log off as Annette)
I think that one must address the position that all men (atheists included) have an inclination toward evil. Those of us who believe in the Bible as the authority agree with the verse in Romans that "ALL have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God."
ReplyDeleteYes, there are monsters like Hitler, Mao, etc. who have given in to that"dark side" to an inhuman degree, but I wonder about the average person who does not use a "yardstick" to measure what is good or evil. You can't go by the majority rule in that, because there are some cannibal societies and gangs (for example)that we would find appalling, yet they see it as a ritual that gives one the victim's power and so it is a good thing to them. The common thread among these people and those who think that murder is right and necessary is that they do what they think is right in their own eyes. They do not have a Universal dictate that says murder is wrong. Murder to them is useful. They wouldn't call this evil. However the victim's family may call it evil. So who is right? Those who say it is or those say it isn't?
The Bible says Thou shalt not kill. That can be a Universal standard for all who believe that God is the final authority and will one day judge a man. If you don't believe in God, then what penalty would you impose for a murderer? If God's laws are null and void because there is no God then who is to impose any rule for behavior? No one. There is then no Universal Authority. If we are going to be victimized we want a Policeman to come to our rescue or to at least apprehend the bad guy after the fact. But if there is no Policeman, or if he doesn't have a clear mandate as to what is right or wrong- we are on our own. To me that is the saddest scenario I can imagine.
I think that most atheists are not really that- they are agnostics with an attitude! Most of the time they have been given an inequitable account of Christ and so they view Him and His law as a good story or as a myth ala Gilgamesh.
If one goes back to their first introduction to God and religion, they may be able to see where the seeds were planted and then to ask the question " Is this truth?"
My 2 cents.