Tag Archives: Objective Morality

Commentary

Is it OK for Christians to make moral judgments?

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I found this short article by Paul Copan on Chris Shannon’s Facebook feed. He’s gone Paul Copan crazy lately – he keeps linking to Paul Copan articles.

Excerpt:

It’s been said that the most frequently quoted Bible verse is no longer John 3:16 but Matthew 7:1: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  We cannot glibly quote this, though, without understanding what Jesus meant.  When Jesus condemned judging, he wasn’t at all implying we should never make judgments about anyone.  After all, a few verses later, Jesus himself calls certain people “pigs” and “dogs” (Matt. 7:6) and “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (7:15)!  Any act of church discipline (1 Cor. 5:5) and rebuking false prophets (1 John 4:1) requires judgment.  What Jesus condemns is a critical and judgmental spirit, an unholy sense of moral superiority.  Jesus commanded us to examine ourselves first for the problems we so easily see in others.  Only then can we help remove the speck in another’s eye—which, incidentally, assumes that a problem exists and must be confronted.1 But let’s take a closer look at this charge that Christians are judgmental when we speak out on moral issues.

He then goes on to make some points:

  • If judging is wrong, then no one can judge you for being judgmental
  • In other places, Jesus urges people to make a right judgment
  • Is it possible to have convictions yet still treat people with respect?
  • Are inclusivists and pluralists (e.g. – Hindus) tolerant of exclusivists?
  • What is tolerance, and how does it relate to truth?
  • Comparison of “equality of persons” with “equality of viewpoints”
  • Are moral standards variable by time and place, or fixed?
  • Are moral standards merely descriptive, or also prescriptive?
  • Should atheists be moral? What reason do they have to be moral?
  • Can non-illusory morality exist in an atheistic universe?
  • Can there be real morality if there is no design in the universe?

And he also talks about what else the Bible says about judging.

It’s a good article. Moral judgments are necessary for us to warn ourselves and others about the harm that may occur if we cross boundaries.

Videos

What would a Christian apologetics movie look like?

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I found this video at Rational Thoughts.

This movie clip was made by Brian Godawa.

One of our commenters Kelli Welch just got her first movie on the big screen as well. She is interested in making films from a Christian worldview.

More on God and morality

Oh, I just noticed this related post from Cloud of Witnesses  via the Apologetics 315 Twitter feed.

This is a quote from Chad Meister from the new book “God is Great, God is Good“, edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister.

Excerpt:

“If evil truly exists, what we could call ‘objective evil’ — then there also exist objective moral values, moral values which are binding on all people, whether they acknowledge them as such or not.  If rape, racism, torture, murder, government-sanctioned genocide and so forth are objectively evil, what makes them so?  What makes them truly evil, rather than simply activities we dislike?  What made the atrocities of the Nazis evil, even though Hitler and his thugs maintained otherwise?  One cannot consistently affirm both that there are no objective moral values, on the one hand, and that rape, torture and the like are objectively morally evil on the other.  If there are objective moral values, there must be some basis — some metaphysical foundation — for their being so. . . .

But [you] can’t have [your] cake and eat it too.  If good and evil are objectively real, they need an objective foundation.  No atheist has provided one, and it’s doubtful that one will be forthcoming.

See, this is the kind of book that Christians should read, because it helps them to talk to their neighbors and to raise their children. Everyone needs to understand the moral argument, and to bring people to account when they claim to be a “good person”. What does good even mean, based on the claimant’s worldview?

Make sure you all follow Brian’s Twitter feed.

Polemics

Psychology Today features atheists who think that they are moral

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I noticed that someone had posted a link to me from this post, so I left the comment below. (I made a few tiny changes below, but it’s basically the same as what I submitted). So far, the long comment has not been published, probably because it was mean, snarky and TOO LONG! So, I’ll show the comment below, but first here’s a word about the post itself. I left a new comment linking to this post, and we’ll see if that one stays up. I understand why they would not approve my comment, if they don’t – and so will you when you read below.

The post on Psychology Today

Notice the title “The Many Voices of the Happily Godless”. It shows two things about morality on atheism. One – that there is safety in numbers. Atheists get their standard of right and wrong from watching other people. That’s why they hate religion and want it banished from the public square, and why they resent Christians voting. They think that right and wrong is decided by counting votes, just like in Nazi Germany or pre-abolition England. So long as lots of people agree, then whatever the society decides is right for them, e.g. – abortion. Cultural relativism.

Second, the purpose of life on atheism is not to be a good person – there is no such thing as good and evil on atheism. They are trying to be happy. So they can define abortion as “good” and “moral” because murdering the weak isn’t wrong so long as it makes them happy. That’s what they mean by morality – what a person chooses to do in order to have feelings of happiness. The very concept of doing something because it is RIGHT, independently of what anyone thinks – as with abolitionists and pro-lifers and defenders of children’s rights with respect to traditional marriage – is foreign to them. (I know that some atheists are pro-life, but most aren’t!)

So they basically re-invent an accidental universe and an ethic of subjective selfish hedonism and then call that “morality”, even though it is the complete opposite of morality. And then they cloister together in the ivory tower with a few sheltered social studies majors who agree with them, read only the New York Times, and watch only MSNBC, listen only to NPR, and then titter nervously to each other about the immoral masses who think that unborn children have a right to life that trumps the “right” to have irresponsible sex and then escape the (financial) consequences of their own risky behavior.

That’s atheist “morality”. There is no objective right and wrong, and no rational argumentation about morality – morality on atheism is an illusion, as atheist Michael Ruse says. You can do anything that you are powerful enough to do in order to have good feelings. Because you can. And you try to pass laws and elect candidates to silence anyone who makes you feel bad for being selfish. And if people disagree with you, then you use the law to silence them, as at the University of Calgary with the pro-life students.

I am not saying that atheists MUST do evil, I am saying that the only reason they have not to do evil is because they can gain pleasure or avoid pain. And that is not morality, that’s just self-interest. Hedonism.

The comment I left that they did not publish

So anyway, I left the comment below and it didn’t appear. I wrote this in a single long edit and didn’t spell-check it or proof-read it before I hit post. This is from the hip, so I hope it makes sense to you.

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It’s not like this is even a close debate, by the way. The concept of rationally-grounded prescriptive morality is totally alien to an atheistic worldview.

1) There are no OBJECTIVE moral values on atheism, moral values independent of what humans think

2) There are no OBJECTIVE moral duties on atheism, moral duties independent of what humans think

3) There is no effective MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY on atheism, especially for powerful committed atheists like Stalin who can escape detection and consequences

4) There is no libertarian free will on atheism, due to materialism and biological determinism. You need the ability to choose in order to make MORAL CHOICES.

5) There is no ultimate significance to our actions on atheism, which undermines the rationality of self-sacrificial moral behavior when it goes against self-interest.

Self-interested hedonism is not “morality”, it’s self-interested hedonism. See the difference? You are not going to get people sacrificing their happiness for the lives of others on atheism, as with Christian abolitionists like William Wilberforce, because self-sacrifice is not rational on atheism. Self-interested hedonism is rational on atheism. The only reason to do anything on atheism is because it makes you feel good or to escape punishment from your society. That’s not morality, it’s the law of the jungle. Morality is sacrificing your life to free slaves when it gives you no feelings of happiness to do so, because you believe that every human being was born with a right to life, and a duty to know God personally.

Atheists can say the words “I’m moral” but what they mean is “I conform my behavior to my own personal preferences or to my society’s arbitrary fashions in this time and place when it coincides with my selfishness or when I am sure I won’t caught”. There is no real way we ought to be on atheism. The universe is an accident and so are we. Doing what makes you happy is not morality – it’s selfishness. Morality means doing the right thing, especially when it goes against your self-interest. But in an accidental universe without design, there is no way we ought to be. You do what you can get away with. That’s atheist “morality”.

And that’s why atheistic communists murdered 100 million people in communist regimes last century, tens of millions more with abortion, and tens of millions more on environmentalist overpopulation fads like banning DDT. Just look at the arguments and count the bodies. If you can’t ground an objective right to life, then these things are possible. Killing those who diminish your happiness is consistent with atheism – survival of the fittest. It is NOT consistent with the teachings of Jesus – love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.

Atheism is a psychological disfunction that results when a person jettisons the demands of their conscience because they want to pursue pleasure in an unrestrained way, or because they expect God to make them happy and he doesn’t. That’s how people become atheists – it’s just immaturity. Atheists invent unscientific myths like the steady-state universe, the multiverse, aliens causing the origin of life, materialist conceptions of mind, unobservable pre-Cambrian fossils, etc. later, in order to disguise the pre-rational rebellion against God and the demands of the objective moral law. The whole point of atheism is to create an excuse for immoral, self-interested hedonistic behavior.

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I wrote a series of posts a while back in which I suggested 13 questions that you can use to understand WHERE atheists are coming from when it comes to morality. I also defined the minimal requirements for objective, rational, prescriptive morality, and explained why none of the requirements are grounded rationally by atheism, but ALL are grounded by Christian theism.

Lastly, you can look at just a few reasons why God exists, and some responses to just a few common objections.

A few reasons for Christian theism

Responses to a few common objections to Christian theism

Some debates on God and morality