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Craig Hazen asks: “can atheists be good without God?”

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Craig Hazen encourages Christians to challenge the New Atheists on their claims of being good without God (and claiming that God is a moral monster, too). How are they helping themselves to objective morality on atheism, so that these statements are more than just their personal opinions?

Hazen writes:

The primary technique the new atheists have adopted for dealing with the issue of the origin or grounding of the moral law is obfuscation. The new atheists are very fond of saying, “We don’t need God to be good.” Indeed, they often say that atheists, agnostics and skeptics often lead more wholesome lives than lifelong professing Christians. Now, theists should not be fooled by this. Our response should be, “Of course you don’t need God to be good — we’ve never claimed that you do.” You see, it is not knowledge (epistemology) of the moral law that is a problem — after all, the Bible teaches that this law is written on every human heart. Rather, the daunting problem for the new atheist is the nature and source (ontology) of the moral law. Here are some questions you can ask Richard Dawkins the next time you sit next to him on a bus:

• If everything ultimately must be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry, help me understand what a moral value is (does it have mass, occupy space, hold a charge, have wavelength)?

• How did matter, energy, time and chance result in a set of objective moral values? Did the big bang really spew forth “love your enemy?” If so, you have to help me understand that.

• What makes your moral standard more than a subjective opinion or personal preference? What makes it truly binding or obligatory? Why can’t I just ignore it? Won’t our end be the same (death and the grave) either way?

The old atheists did not want to have to face questions like these, so they simply denied the reality of objective moral values. The new atheists have thrown the door open. Let’s not make it easy for them. Let’s ask the hard questions in a winsome and engaging way.

Where does the standard that allows atheists to “be good” come from on atheism? And where does the standard that allows them to judge God as evil come from on atheism?

Comedy: atheists making moral demands on atheists

I think that this article on The Other McCain is relevant to Hazen’s essay. The article explains the latest scandal in the atheist blogosphere: A 30-year old divorced atheist feminist tried to impose objective moral obligations on another atheist who hit on her in an elevator.

Excerpt:

There is nothing wrong with “don’t do that” as advice. The guy’s approach was clumsy and creepy. But it seems obvious, to me at least, that he was merely exhibiting a deficiency of social skills, rather than predatory menace.

While we cannot rule out the possibility that the guy is a serial killer with the bodies of 11 victims buried in his backyard, I’m inclined to believe he was just awkward and clueless. It was 4 a.m. and, in the famous words of Mickey Gilley, “The women all get prettier at closing time.” What was this guy’s blood-alcohol content? Was he at the beer-goggles stage where he saw Watson as Ingrid Bergman and thought he was Humphrey Bogart?

Well, as Watson says, “don’t do that.” But it’s a huge leap from “don’t do that” to a very broad and general accusation of misogyny and a complaint about being sexualized.

What set off the big brouhaha amongst atheists and feminists, however, was when Dawkins showed up in the comments of a blog to belittle Watson’s complaint by comparing her unpleasant elevator experience to the sufferings of women in the Islamic world. Once the feminists started screaming for blood, Dawkins’s fellow atheists were only too happy to throw him under the bus. The reaction was as if Dawkins himself had hit on Watson.

This is one of those episodes where the totalitarian impulse of feminism is glaringly apparent. Feminists ferociously suppress dissent and seek to impose a conformity of thought, so that anyone within the movement who expresses doubt about the dogma and the agenda is condemned as a heretic.

But I wanted to address the issue of atheism and morality in my comment to McCain’s post:

It’s hilarious to me that a woman can be an atheist, think the universe is an accident, think that there is no objective moral law based on a design for how humans ought to be, and then prescribe criteria for male behavior as if it is not just her personal opinion, but is a shared, objective standard that men should adhere to.

If the universe is an accident, then whatever is, is right. If matter is all there is, then there is no way that the matter “ought to be”. Matter just is.

Here’s Dawkins himself:
“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”

Source:
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~chester/CES/may98/dawkins.html

You can’t derive a prescriptive morality if nature is just about survival of the fitness. Either we are moral agents endowed with consciousness and free will (which requires a non-material soul) OR WE ARE ANIMALS. And animals are not moral agents. The customs and conventions of different social groups in different times and places in history are not objective moral duties. They are just like culinary customs and dress styles. And you can’t accuse anyone of being immoral on that kind of relativistic view. The worst she could say is “I don’t like it” or “that person is acting unfashionably”. She can’t say that anything is WRONG.

And I also thought this comment to McCain’s post was pretty funny:

There’s a possibility here that you’re overlooking, which is that the young lady might just have wanted for people to know–in a shrill, scolding, disapproving, school-marmish kinda way–that somebody was attracted to her. Because otherwise, you know, we would probably assume that nobody is.

Indeed. It makes me laugh when atheists assert that marriage, which is built on self-sacrifice and moral obligations, is somehow compatible with the view that morality is “an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes”, as atheist Michael Ruse says. Atheists reduce morality to personal opinions and cultural conventions that vary by time and place, and then they demand that other people act according to those preferences and conventions. “[They] laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in [their] midst. [They] castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful”, as C.S. Lewis argues in his essay “Men Without Chests”.

Recall the study that showed that Christians who attend church regularly have vastly lower divorce rates than average. Maybe that’s because they are constantly reminded in church that morality is rooted in God’s character, and not a figment of their imaginations that can be vetoed for selfish gain? That might be a helpful bit of knowledge to have in your worldview if you’re considering marriage, you know. Love requires that the idea of self-sacrifice be rationally grounded in some sort of objective design for the universe and us. You can’t get love from selfishness. You can’t get marriage from survival of the fittest. Not rationally, anyway. And when the chips are down, and obligations clash with self-interest, reason has a major part to play in determining how we will act. Either you ground morality or you cave in to selfishness, and marriages don’t last when you have no reason not to be selfish.

By the way, the best article refuting evolutionary explanations of morality is written by Mark D. Linville. It’s in the book “Contending with Christianity’s Critics“.

Hmmn, I wonder where this link goes.

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Commentary

Understanding the challenge of becoming a Christian

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One thing that I have noticed as I compiled the results of the survey is that none of these non-Christians understood what Christianity is about, and none of them have tried to find out, and none of them wanted to find out. All but one refused to follow Jesus even if it became clear to them beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christianity were true. And he initially answered as the others did.

Somehow, people have gotten into their heads the idea that religions are all the same, and that the purpose of religion is to make people “good”, (or worse, “happy”). And when they say “good”, they mean being nice to others. Surprise! The purpose of Christianity is NOT to make you be nice to others nor to make you happy. In fact, no amount of being nice is going to please God, unless something even more important is secured first.

The purpose of Christianity is three-fold. You must expend time, effort and wealth:

  1. KNOWING GOD’S CHARACTER AS HE REALLY IS.
  2. KNOWING WHAT GOD HAS DONE IN HISTORY.
  3. RESPONDING TO AND PURSUING GOD, AS HE REVEALS HIMSELF TO YOU.

You don’t decide what your purpose is, God does. God was there before the universe and his character was set before you were even born. He created you and designed you for a purpose.

I wanted to highlight a story in Daniel 3 in order to show what it is that atheists choose not to do, which God considers moral. An atheist cannot stand for God in public, and remain faithful and loyal to him in the midst of suffering and persecution. And Christians are required do this. This is following the example of the Old Testament prophets, as well as Jesus himself.

It should be no comfort to atheists that they stick to their chosen diet, or stop at stop signs, practice yoga and recycle. God is not the least bit interested in your compliance with your own arbitrary personal preferences, nor the arbitrary standard of your culture in the time and place you live in. That’s not morality! That’s just giving yourself happy feelings by effortlessly complying with made-up standards.

One way of loving God, (which is the most important commandment), is by keeping faith with God publicly, even when things don’t go your way. Atheists can’t do that. It just isn’t rational for people who will be alive for 75 years and then gone, to deny themselves for any higher purpose, especially when it involves suffering. And when being good isn’t rational, people don’t do it, especially when it’s hard to do.

That is why it is impossible to please God unless you first believe certain things that are only possible if God exists. For example, you need an objective moral standard, free will, someone to whom duty is owed, moral accountability, moral significance, etc.

And to illustrate what counts with God, let’s take a look at this sermon on Daniel 3 that I found that tells the story of Daniel and his 3 friends.

The Scripture is here. You’ll need to read this if you don’t know the story.

And the sermon excerpt is here:

Now, before we set up Nebuchadnezzar as the worst guy ever, we don’t have to go back very far to see similar things that have happened in our own day and age.  Every totalitarian the regime in the 20th century had statues erected in honor of their own tyrant.  Whether it was statues of Lenin in the Soviet Union, statues of Mao in China, or statues of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, people had to pay homage to these statues is they wanted to advance in society, and in some cases, simply to stay alive.  Usually one was allowed to keep believing in whatever ‘god’ they wanted as long as it was subordinate to the empire.  Allegiance to the state was more important than allegiance to any god.

Our society is certainly different in that we don’t have a dictator, and nobody, at least not yet, is threatening to shoot us or toss us into a fiery furnace.  But in some ways our society is actually worse, mostly because its pressure is very subtle and sometimes we don’t even realize it’s going on.  Our culture places the same type of pressure on each one of us to put God in second place.  We find ourselves constantly pressed to keep our beliefs private and secondary. We can believe whatever we want as long as we don’t ever talk about it.

…Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego… had failed to bow down and worship the statue, thereby disrespecting not only the statue but the king as well.

They were accused of ingratitude, verse 12, “There are certain Jews whom you have appointed,” and impiety,” they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”  But the fundamental element of both these charges was their offense against Nebuchadnezzar himself. But that’s not how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego saw it.

They were simply trying to be obedient to the commandment, Exodus 20:4­5a, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God …”

It’s worth noting that there were only three men in the whole crowd who refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue…. this highlights the fact that sometimes standing up for God can be a lonely activity.  And it doesn’t matter if you’re standing on the national stage or you’re simply visiting with all your unbelieving relatives who think you’re some sort of moronic freak.  There are times in life when doing what’s right means you can’t hide in the crowd.

…I’ve come to see this same battle being fought daily in my heart over much lesser issues.  Am I going to declare the Lord to be my primary allegiance, come what may, or will I bow to the multitude of idols that the world presents?  Unless you’re an actor, our idols aren’t usually golden statues.  Our idols are the various pleasures, desires, and attitudes that the culture tells me I need to have in order to live a fulfilled and worthwhile life.

For some, their golden image is the respect and admiration and acceptance of others.  For a lot the young adults here, high school and college, there’s the pressure to be part of the “in­ crowd,” even though the cost of admission to this club is that we shouldn’t show respect to our parents, or talk about God, or keep ourselves pure until marriage.  This image of acceptance says, “Bow to me or I’ll throw you into the fiery furnace of the mockery and ridicule of your peers.’

Notice how this example of obedience and endurance parallels the life of Jesus, as well, which provides the model for Christians who are called upon to do the same – and this is central to Christianity. Where is this on atheism? Clearly, atheists cannot meet this standard. It is irrational, on atheism, to perform acts of self-sacrifice like this in obedience to an objective moral law, and to the moral lawgiver.

So, what is important to Christians is not what is important to atheists, obviously. Our primary goal is not our feelings and well-being, or being “nice” to others or being liked by others. That is irrelevant. What is considered normal in Christianity is put yourself second, and to put God first, under fire. That is loving God. The most important commandment.

Greg Koukl put it nicely in one of his lectures in the Q&A session when he said “With respect to God’s purposes in the world, your happiness is expendable”. That is the normal Christian life. And it isn’t for everyone.


News

Obama’s car regulations will kill more Americans than the Iraq war

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The Heritage Foundation reports on Obama’s proposed regulations on fuel economy.

Time for practice. Time to pile into the…Toyota Prius? Maybe the Yaris. Or surely the Smart Car will do. Those are three of eleven cars that meet President Obama’s new emissions standards that include “nothing larger than a midsize sedan, even when you include hybrids.”

Eleven choices of vehicle? The soccer moms will not be liking that.

But it gets worse. It’s going to cost another 50,000 jobs added on to Obama’s massive count.

Keith Henessey writes: (H/T Competitive Enterprise Institute)

NHTSA estimated that a similar option would cost almost 50,000 U.S. auto manufacturing jobs over five years.

See Table VII-1 on page 586 of the NHTSA analysis.  NHTSA estimated that the TC=TB option, which I’m using as a proxy for the Obama plan, would result in the following job losses among U.S. auto workers:

MY 2011

MY 2012

MY 2013

MY 2014

MY 2015

8,232

24,610

30,545

36,106

48,847

Compared to the Bush draft final rule, this is 37,000 more jobs lost.

Since I know this table is inflammatory, I will anticipate some of the responses:

  • This is an estimate for the job loss from the TC=TB option analyzed by NHTSA in 2007.  This is the closest proxy for the Obama rule, and I’m convinced it’s a good proxy until someone demonstrates otherwise.  But technically, it’s not a job loss estimate for the Obama proposal.
  • This estimate was done in a different economic environment (late 2008), and before the U.S. government owned 1.5 major U.S. auto manufacturers.  My guess, however, is that these changed conditions should push the estimated job loss up from the above estimate, rather than down.
  • There’s a false precision in the above table.  It’s just what NHTSA’s model spits out.  …I don’t put any weight on the precise annual estimates.

And it gets even worse than that.

Steve Milloy writes about the really bad problem on Green Hell blog: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

The Obama administration’s proposed mileage standards that will be announced today may kill more Americans at a faster rate than the Iraq War — his signature issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Obama’s standards will require automakers to meet a 35 miles-per-gallon standard by 2016 — four years earlier than the same standard imposed by the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007.

As discussed in my new book Green Hell, the only way for carmakers to meet these standard is to make smaller, lighter and deadlier cars.

The National Academy of Sciences has linked mileage standards with about 2,000 deaths per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that every 100-pound reduction in the weight of small cars increases annual traffic fatalities by as much as 715.

In contrast in the more than six years since the Iraq war began, there have been 4,296 deaths among American military personnel.

The Iraq war cost 550 billion and 4300 lives. And for this we got more liberty and security. Obama is spending trillions and trillions of dollars, and he wants to kill 2,000 Americans per year? I am not even talking about his subsidies to kill more unborn babies at home and abroad. This is on top of that!