From his debate with Sam Harris.
Here are a couple more videos you may like:
The moral argument is one of my favorite arguments.
From his debate with Sam Harris.
Here are a couple more videos you may like:
The moral argument is one of my favorite arguments.
This is from Parchment & Pen. There is an MP3 file linked in the post. (H/T Apologetics 315)
Excerpt:
Last week, Richard Dawkins spoke here in Ft. Lauderdale at Nova Southeastern University on “The Fact of Evolution.” The following week, I spoke on “The Fact of God”—also delivered at Nova Southeastern.
[…]I asked Dawkins how he could claim that the naturalist id rationally superior to the theist since, according to his book River Out of Eden, all of us are dancing to the music of our DNA. Our beliefs are the product of non-rational, deterministic physical forces beyond our control—whether we’re theists or naturalists. In fact, if the naturalist is right, it’s only by accident—not because he’s more intellectually virtuous than the theist. That is, the naturalist has accidental true belief (which is not knowledge) rather than warranted true belief (which is knowledge).
Dawkins gave the odd reply that it’s kind of like Republicans and Democrats—with each group thinking they’re right and the other group wrong. But on what grounds could either side think they are more rational than the other? Dawkins then added that he supposed that whatever view “works” the correct one to hold. But here’s the problem: what “works” is logically distinct from “true” or “matching up with reality”—since we may hold to a lot of false beliefs that help us survive and reproduce, even if they are false. Indeed, naturalistic evolution is interested in survival and reproduction—the “four F’s” (fighting, feeding, fleeing, and reproducing). Truth, the naturalist philosopher Patricia Churchland argues, is secondary to these pursuits According to another such naturalist, the late Richard Rorty, truth is “utterly unDarwinian.”
[…]…how can Dawkins condemn “religious” people who fly planes into buildings since they are just dancing to their DNA—just like the naturalist is? They’re just doing what nature has programed them to do. We can further ask: Why isn’t Dawkins denouncing atrocities done in the name of atheism—like those of Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao Tse-tung? Dawkins gives the impression that it’s only people of “religion” who carry out horrendous evils. Of course, if Dawkins is right, these mass murderers could not justly be condemned since they too were wired by nature to act as they did.
Paul then excerpts a segment from an interview with Dawkins:
Dawkins:….What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, “Oh well he couldn’t help doing it, he was determined by his molecules.” Maybe we should… I sometimes… Um… You probably remember many of you would have seen Fawlty Towers. The episode where Basil where his car won’t start and he gives it fair warning, counts up to three, and then gets out of the car and picks up a tree branch and thrashes it within an edge of his life. Maybe that’s what we all ought to… Maybe the way we laugh at Basil Fawlty, we ought to laugh in the same way at people who blame humans. I mean when we punish people for doing the most horrible murders, maybe the attitude we should take is “Oh they were just determined by their molecules.” It’s stupid to punish them. What we should do is say “This unit has a faulty motherboard which needs to be replaced.” I can’t bring myself to do that. I actually do respond in an emotional way and I blame people, I give people credit, or I might be more charitable and say this individual who has committed murders or child abuse of whatever it is was really abused in his own childhood. ….
Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views?
Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. But it has nothing to do with my views on religion it is an entirely separate issue.
There’s a fuller explanation in the post – I just pulled out some parts to give you the idea.
This is something Christians need to get used to. Atheism should not smuggle in Christian beliefs. Atheism has to stand and fall on materialism, determinism, life ending at the grave, and moral subjectivism. There is no free will on atheism. There are no moral values or moral obligations on atheism. There is no rationality on atheism. There is no meaning in life on atheism. There is no purpose to life on atheism. There is no accountability for sin on atheism. There is no self-sacrificial love on atheism. There is no reward for virtue and self-sacrifice on atheism. It is a worldview
Here’s the new book on J.P. Moreland’s web site.
Full text:
In the Soul Hypothesis: Investigations into the Existence of the Soul (Continuum), co-editors Mark C. Baker and Stewart Goetz have assembled an impressive interdisciplinary team of scholars to address questions about the existence and nature of the soul.
“The Soul of the Matter” – Charles Taliaferro
“Minds, Brains and Brains in Vats” – Daniel N. Robinson
“Brains and Souls; Grammar and Speaking” – Mark Baker
“Making Things Happen: Souls in Action” – Stewart Goetz
“Energy of the Soul” – Robin Collins
“The Measure of All Things: Quantum Mechanics and the Soul” – Dean Zimmerman
“From Seeing to Seer” – Hans Halvorson
“Souls Beastly and Human” – William Hasker
“A Scientific Case for the Soul” – Robin Collins
You can preview the book here.
The book is unique is combining philosophical and scientific arguments for dualism, and the result is a rigorous, exciting, persuasive presentation of the issues and a stimulating challenge to so much of the reductionism that reigns in the sciences. As was noted in a recent review of the book in the WSJ,
Sooner or later, the contributors to “The Soul Hypothesis” warn, scientists will pinpoint the exact three neurons whose firing accompanies the thought of our deciding to make a phone call or, if you prefer, deciding to get up and get a beer from the refrigerator. As ever more such micro-couplings are observed, we will—so scientists tell us with unseemly glee— gradually come to see that our cherished conscious life is nothing but a long series of electrical impulses, not an autonomous realm of free will and free thought. Co-editor Mark C. Baker cites the psychologist Steven Pinker, who finds it plausible to say that neural “activity in the brain” simply “is the mind.”
The book’s contributors set out this scientific challenge fully and engagingly, but they also expose its fallacies. They note, for instance, that even if two things differ in their essential nature, as do mental thoughts and physical actions—or legislatures and laws—there is no reason why the one can’t cause the other. As David Hume argued, what establishes our idea of cause and effect is the regular “conjunction” of two events. That a physical act regularly follows a mental decision suggests, as co-editor Stewart Goetz writes, that the one is “causing” the other and that voluntary human action exists.
The Soul Hypothesis is an excellent text that is sure to provoke a vigorous dialog about its content. I highly recommend it.
I really would like to be able to use this argument more – I just need a good book. I’m a big admirer of Charles Taliaferro. I even met him once at a conference!