Suffering and the Bible

Since I've had a little more free time this past two weeks, I've pondered a little on old philosophical problems and thus have felt the old familiar urge for an atheist apologetic post. I just got through reading a thought I've had before, but put well into words: that the Cinderella-esque nature of the Christian narrative makes the problem of evil even more difficult for the Christian than for the Muslim or Jew. I also saw Bart Ehrman's lecture (video) on suffering via DC. He also mentions Elie Wiesel and his God on Trial that you can watch on YouTube. He lists the following as the attempts in the Bible to explain or understand suffering in the world: as punishment for (or as a natural consequence of) sin, evil forces in the world (Satan) who are allowed to punish people, as a test of one's faith (Job), a "mystery" that even to ask "Why?" is a blasphemy, that sometimes chaos happens and we "get in the way".

Ross Douthat writes:

Any such revolution would affect atheism as well as belief. Consider, for instance, the way in which the dominance of the Christian story has actually sharpened one of the best arrows in the anti-theist's quiver. In Western society, especially, the oft-heard claim that the world is too cruel a place for a good omnipotence to have created derives a great deal of its power, whether implicitly or explicitly, from the person of Christ himself. The God of the New Testament seems more immediate, more personal, and more invested in his creation than He had heretofore revealed Himself to be. But this arguably makes Him seem more culpable for the world's suffering as well. Paradoxically, the God who addresses Job out of the whirlwind is far less vulnerable to complaints about the world's injustice than the God who suffers on the Cross - or the human God who cries in the manger. For many Christians, Christ's suffering provides a partial answer to the problem of theodicy. But for many atheists and agnostics, it only sharpens the question: How can a God who loves mankind enough to die for us allow us to suffer as much as we do?

Take that question away, and all the arguments that spin away from it disappear as well. Which is just one small reason why a world in which nobody had any reason any longer to believe that God had been born in human flesh to a poor Jewish woman in Bethlehem, or died a miserable death on a Roman cross, would be a world in which atheists as well as believers found themselves arguing about life, the universe and everything in very different ways than they do now.

This is true. For people like presuppositionalists, they prefer to use the whirlwind-style God along with their Calvinism and Rom 9 to say, "Who are you to question God's way of running the world?" To them, you either have no logical basis to even argue that God isn't good (a difficult argument for them to maintain) or you have no ability to cross over to disprove their beliefs because of your flawed fundamental premises. They are a small minority of Christians for good reason. For most Christians, they want to believe that the world as you see it is not the world that God wants it to be, but that He allows it to remain this way because of one thing or another (attempting to draw a distinction between what God permissively and what God perfectly wills has always been absurd to me). Free will is the typical theodicy.

I agree with one of the first things Ehrman says about suffering with respect to Americans: it is very, very difficult to relate to most Americans the scope and nature of suffering that occurs in the world on a daily (minute-by-minute) basis. The inability of Americans to grasp at such suffering, I am convinced, is at least in part the reason for the outlier nature of America in being a very religious country which is also very rich. As I said in a recent post,

The idea that God is listening to your requests and will fix that prostate, or give you that new job, or raise, or protect you from danger, is hilarious. While you're sitting there asking that, mothers are raising their dead children to the sky, after pleading with God to spare them. People are physically rotting from leprosy and mentally rotting from Alzheimer's. To think that God is letting all the billions of people on earth suffer and plead with no reprieve, but that he cares what job you have or mate you pick, is the height of hubris. The problem of evil has destroyed the faith of giants like Charles Templeton and unknowns like me.

When Bart Ehrman talks about free will theodicies, he labels them the "robot answer" defense of suffering in the world: humans are given the ability to obey or disobey and this leads to suffering in the world. He points out that this may help explain some suffering but not natural disasters. He doesn't take it to the next level and include animal suffering, accidents and the distinctions I've drawn before -- the question of why one person's (evil) will supersedes the others involved (including God's and the victims of the suffering), the question of why the physical contingencies allow for one person's (evil) will to actually physically occur rather than be a wish...[I won't rehash all that again, but it is essential to read that post as I feel I've dealt with nearly every single point that theists raise to the argument from evil against God's existence.]

Ehrman goes on to bring up the classic 3-point argument from evil:

1. God is all-powerful
2. God is all-loving
3. There is suffering

He establishes the common theodicies:

1. Deny one of the three premises (deny 1, deny 2, deny 3)
   
2. Bring in an "extenuating circumstance" to explain how the three premises are not logically imcompatible: as punishment for (or as a natural consequence of) sin, evil forces in the world (Satan) who are allowed to punish people, as a test of one's faith (Job), a "mystery", that even to ask "Why?" is a blasphemy, that sometimes chaos happens and we "get in the way" (think spiritual warfare here).

He then goes on to look at the two major overarching themes on suffering in the Bible -- one from the OT and one from the NT:

1. OT (the "Prophetic response") -- the Prophets nearly all had the same view on suffering, and it only concerned Israel, that suffering was punishment for sin. This is exemplified in the story of the Exodus and the obligation that Israel had towards God for saving them from Egypt. If Israel was God's "Chosen People" then all its suffering (war, drought, pestilence, famine) must be explained as some sort of breach of contract, and of course it must be man's (not God's) fault for this contract being breached (cf. Amos 3:2). The reason this is a supposed "solution" to the problem of evil is that the punishment is made with repentance in mind; if the people turn around from their "sin" then the suffering will have served a "greater good" of saving their souls. This is consistent with Adam & Eve's explusion from the Garden of Eden, with the Noachian Flood, with Sodom & Gomorrah, &c. The question of why people are supposed to believe that this sort of God is worth serving is left for the thinker...
   
2. NT (the "apocalyptic response") -- found in the latest book of the OT (Daniel) and dominated the NT: suffering was not coming as a punishment from God, but from "other sources" in the world. Enemies of God (cosmic forces in the world) cause our suffering (the devil and his demons). The devil was not found in the Prophets. Sin is not a specific wrong that you've done, but a sort of cosmic force in the world ("the flesh") and this is what leads to suffering. Eventually, God will remove these evil forces from the world and restore perfection to the world.
3. The Ecclesiastical Response -- "all is vanity" [vanity = Hebrew hevel: transcience, impermanence]. There is no justice in the world, therefore the idea that suffering is a just punishment for sin is false. Also, there will not be justice in the next world, which takes away the empty hope of Apocalypticists. Therefore, live life fully in the present. There is therefore no "answer" to suffering except to try to live and enjoy life. Paul's thoughts as he pondered this possibility? Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die! This third response is somewhat like that of atheism.
   

Ehrman points out four tenets of this apocalyptic response:
1) dualism [Manichaeism]: which groups everyone into either God's camp or the devil's, and also gives this world (the one of suffering) to the devil but the future world (the one of perfection) to God, is also intended to explain "why the wicked prosper but the righteous suffer", in the sense that the present age will "pass away";
2) pessimism: we can't really improve the present age, and even if we do, it won't matter in the cosmic sense, the present age is under the control of evil forces, and things will get worse and worse;
3) vindication: God will set things right, especially by judgment, and restore its own sovereignty, those in one camp will be rewarded and those in the other will be punished, this is why the suffering that occurred in this world is really inconsequential, this was the beginning of philosophical defenses within Judaism/Christianity of the afterlife;
4) imminence: the timing for all this is soon, the coming of the Lord is at hand, things were just about as bad as they could get/were going to be, Mark 9:1, the imminence seems necessary as it helps to make God less bad for letting all this suffering occur -- if God can stand this much suffering for much longer, it seems that God is less good;

Ehrman looks at the Apocalypticists as a contrast to the Prophets and points out the logical inconsistencies that any believer has to deal with. Moral complacency is a real issue for the former: why worry about evil if things will get better only in the next world? Along this same line, the belief that the end is coming soon is something that gives believers hope but also alarm and fear. Therefore, along with moral complacency, believers along the Apocalyptic response have a certain scary worldview that doesn't enrich their lives or the lives of those around. The conflict between the two major responses is obvious: either this world is rotten and you don't get what you deserve here because God doesn't fundamentally dole out punishment until a later judgment, or, people do get what they deserve in this life. Either you reap what you sow here in this world or you don't and you get it in the world to come.

One of the questions he was given at 48:00 or so in to the video was, "How do you know that suffering is bad if there is no God?" He dealt with it pretty simply: the traditional utilitarian view -- whatever brings about good (in the sense of health, wealth, happiness and pleasure) for the majority of people, acknowledging and using our human sense of empathy in avoiding suffering for ourselves and others as being foundational to this moral view. He also hinted at seeing the problem of Divine Command Theory in his transition from to becoming an agnostic from Christian.

I also liked a guy at the end (55:00 or so) who pointed out that the idea that "the poor you shall have with you always," and the general moral complacency brought about by the Apocalyptical view is harmful and wrong. We have the resources in the world, if they were redistributed and focused, to end the sort of starvation and ridiculous death rates from things like lack of drinking water and mosquito nets. And this guy's point was that a religious view keeps us from realizing that we could alleviate much suffering on earth, and thus in turn reduce the burden on a theist to explain/justify it with a theodicy.

Some of Ehrman's statistics (21:55):

• Every 5 seconds, a child starves to death
• Every minute, 25 people die from drinking unclean drinking water
• Every hour, 700 people die from malaria
  

The anthropic principle revisited

This month's issue of Seed alerted me to something that I have mentioned before and think may just destroy the factual basis of the fine-tuning argument for a God's existence. Imagine that instead of arguing that the physical constants are fine-tuned so that they cannot be independently varied, we actually did a mathematical analysis of them to see how the ratios of the constants could be changed but still produce life. In a peer-reviewed article entitled, "Limitations of anthropic predictions for the cosmological constant Λ: cosmic heat death of anthropic observers", Fred C. Adams at Michigan looked at the relationships of gravity and the nuclear forces as fundamental physical constants and found that so long as these are varied together, they produce a number of star-sustaining, and therefore life-sustaining, physical universes.

In this latter case, the bounds on a Λ [the cosmological constant] can be millions of times larger than previous estimates—and the observed value. We thus conclude that anthropic reasoning has limited predictive power.

Theists often use the anthropic principle to argue in favor of an intelligent designer of the universe. Given that the idea of the argument precludes the designer being a part of the universe, this is all but arguing for the existence of God, not just some alien somewhere. The argument usually goes, "If you changed the force of gravity by even one-quadrillionth of a N, then life couldn't exist..."

You can view this sort of argument here and here by Collins. A substantive reply to Collins' argument follows:

Collins is more persuasive, although certainly not original, when trotting out the Anthropic Principle, the argument that the universe is uniquely pre-tuned to bring about life in general and human life in particular. There are a number of physical constants and laws such that if any had been even slightly different, life might well have been impossible. For example, for roughly every billion quarks and antiquarks, there is an excess of one quark – otherwise, no matter. If the rate of expansion immediately after the Big Bang had been a teeny tiny fraction smaller than it was, the universe would have recollapsed long ago. If the strong nuclear forces holding atomic nuclei together had been just a smidgeon weaker, then only hydrogen would exist; if a hair stronger, all hydrogen would promptly have become helium, and the solar furnaces inside stars –which we can thank for the heavier elements – would never have existed.

Both Dawkins and Sagan also examine this argument, which Dawkins caricatures as "god-as-dial-twiddler." It is oddly tautological, in that if the universe were not as it is, we indeed would not be here to wonder about it. In Fred Hoyle's science fiction novel, The Black Cloud, it is explained that the probability of a golf ball landing on any particular spot is exceedingly low – and yet, it has to land somewhere! The Anthropic Principle can also be "solved" by multiple universes, of which ours could simply be the one in which we exist; this might apply not only to horizontally existing multi-verses, but to the same one occurring differently in time if there have been (and will be) unending expansions and contractions. Moreover, it isn't at all clear that the various physical dials are independent, or that the physical constants in the universe could be any different, given the nature of matter and energy.

This is a typical response to the theistic position --

1) pointing out that improbable events happen all the time without being of divine origin: each seven-card hand dealt in stud poker has a probability of (1/52*1/51*1/50*1/49*1/48*1/47*1/46) = 1 in 674,274,182,400. But does that make it a miracle?
2) questioning whether the constants can be changed at all, or if they are primally fixed by the nature of the universe
3) invoking the multiverse to reduce the significance of any one universe's "uniqueness" in a statistical sense (also see here)

But from a scientist's standpoint, it's much more interesting to wonder what ratios and relationships amongst the physical constants would still produce life if they were varied interdependently. And that's the question that has been answered by Fred Adams. There are many configurations of the constants that, when varied together, still produce life-friendly, or "Goldilocks"-zone universes. This makes the anthropic principle much less interesting. Yet another reason to give up on the idea of a God.

Dialog with Andy

Two of the guys in athletics department at my school are very thoughtful theists who I enjoy bantering with about theological issues. I've posted my recent dialog with Andy below, his responses are indented further and mine are between carets (>>, <<). The hyperlinks have been added to this to refer to things I've already written on the topics:

Andy wrote:

God is recorded in the sacred writ as being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. I've been pondering lately the implications of the third quality, given what we've learned about relativity.

>>I actually don't know if I agree with this premise or not. I think that early Christian thought didn't have this concept, but that later Christian thinkers, re-discovering philosophy from the Greeks and Romans, adopted it. For the sake of argument, let's say you're right. What I would bring up, though, are certain aspects of the OT, in particular, where God asks questions and other things in the Bible that don't comport well in a literal reading with these properties.<<

Someone ostensibly traveling at the speed of light need not age. (Is this correct?) The closer one travels to the speed of light, the slower time "moves." (I guess in actuality, there may somehow be a continuum and time moves more slowly as speeds are gradually increased, so that even at 60 miles an hour, you might age a fraction slower than someone standing still?) But this is not central to my thoughts.

>>You are right, but an important distinction: Remember that in physics, you must always clarify your frame of reference. More time passes for an observer to your frame of reference than for you within the frame of reference. It isn't that there is such a universal thing as "time" -- in the same way that there isn't such a universal thing as "space" -- space-time is experienced locally for each person, thus the need for different frames of reference. In other words, if God has on a watch, and goes near the speed of light from X to Y and back to X, the amount of time that has passed for God will be very very little compared to what we experienced in watching the space ship leave and return (observers).

But...yes, this is the basis for the Lorentz factor.<<

I cannot be in two places (let's call them points X and Y in three dimensions) "at the same time." However, as my speed increases, I can move from point X to point Y, closer and closer to "the same time" Time becomes a sort of fourth dimension, so that as I move faster, the interrelatedness and interdependence of time and space become apparent. Indeed, exceeding the speed of light even allows me to move backward on the timeline?

>>Indeed, the four-dimensional nature of space-time makes it such that if you sort of have to pick three to move through rapidly, so that you are not moving through the fourth rapidly. A really good overview of both special and general relativity is given in both of Brian Greene's layman-oriented books: The Elegant Universe and Fabric of the Cosmos.<<

The Christian theistic concept of a God that exists outside of physical time (Ravi Zacharias maintains that the Judeo-Christian God is the only God of the major world religions that attempts to speak of a God existing outside of time) then allows for a quite elementary explanation of an omnipresent God, in the sense that God is able to be in multiple places at the same time. I don't know whether it's better to explain it as God moving at an extremely fast speed, so that time slows or even reverses, allowing God to move back and forth on the space-time continuum, or whether you simply view God as existing outside of the fourth dimension of time, able to move through space without the constraints of time. In either case, this would make issues like prophecy, omnipresence, etc, all much more palatable to our limited human reason. God can simultaneously be at points X and Y, given his ability to "move quckly" and be free from the constraints of time. And so on for points, Z, W, V, etc. :) Any thoughts?

>>There is an a priori issue that must be addressed about the idea of omnipresence: what does it mean to say that God "is" somewhere? Is God even composed of a substance? If so, then we could speak of how His matter is located within space-time at those coordinates (think: Columbia, SC are the 3 space dimensions and Sun, 8/24/08 @ 1 PM is the 1 time dimension), but then we start to wonder -- is God's matter/substance interspersed between physical matter/substances? Is it like God exists between the atoms in my body (and everywhere else), and if so, then can we say that God exists "within" space-time? Can we say that God is actually omnipresent, since to be between two things is not to be at those actual things?

I think that a lot of the properties ascribed to God don't withstand serious logical scrutiny. If God "is" somewhere, does that mean being a part of that space/matter, or distinct from it? If God is "at" distinct coordinates within space-time, then is God is just as much a part of the universe as you and I? Then does that make God just as bound to the laws of physics as we are? And if so, how could God create that which God is a part of?

I don't think that special (or general) relativity really serves to provide a basis for omnipresence, because omnipresence itself is antithetical to the concepts of physics.

There is also a fundamental physical issue that makes it problematic to say that relativity "allows for a quite elementary explanation" of omnipresence. One of the things relativity does is prevent anything with mass from actually moving at the speed of light, and definitely not faster than it. [note: a differentiation must be made between c (3.0 x 10^8 m/s) and the speed of light outside of a vacuum (c/n), thus things like the faster-than-light Cherenkov radiation observed in nuclear cores]. This is a first principle issue that would diminish the ability to use the physics to justify omnipresence. Nothing is actually allowed to travel at light speed with mass, and it must travel in only one distinct direction at a time. This would also prevent traveling backwards through time as nothing could travel faster-than-light.

If God is massless, then in that sense God is not composed of anything. If God is not composed of anything, then God isn't "located" anywhere. And that gets back to the a priori issue of whether omnipresence even makes sense. You can't say, "God is at coordinates: A, B, C, D within space-time," because there isn't any "stuff" (matter/substance) which actually occupies space or time there.

In addition, as I said above, special relativity allows for objects moving rapidly in three dimensions to move very slowly in the fourth. This would put a lot of limits on your idea of being "able to be in multiple places at the same time" -- for although God could (theoretically) travel from X to Y with no apparent time loss to the observer (us), this framework still puts God thoroughly "inside" space-time. God's frame of reference is still very much bound by space-time in the sense that time still passes for God. So God is still bound to physics, rather than, as most theists believe, able to create physics.

So, to me, to try to use physics to justify or explain omnipresence is both unnecessary and illogical. You can't use a physical theory to try to explain an immaterial God. You can still believe in God, of course, but you can't support the property of omnipresence using physics.<<

On an unrelated note, what do you think about having some sort of "faith forum" in the chapel from time to time, where different faculty or staff are free to speak on topics of deeper significance, eventually even allowing some debates, Q & A, apologetic lectures, etc. I think it would be neat to all come under one figurative big tent in the collective pursuit of truth.

>>I think that sort of thing would be great. I just don't know if I personally would want to participate as a religious skeptic, since it could really be a bad thing for me career-wise. A lot of parents would just never forgive me or like me again if they heard me present arguments against the existence of a theistic God, and you might be surprised at the ways that some people would bring that up later on as ammo against me. But I would go, I would enjoy it, and I would push my students to attend. I just don't know if I personally would want to be up there at the podium/lectern. Maybe in a few years...

-------- Original Message --------

	Subject:	Re: chat yesterday
	Date:	Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:43:46 -0700 (PDT)
	From:	Andy

Ultimately, for better or worse, I chose to focus on one or two key points. I’ve found in discussions like this it’s quite easy to try to advance on a dozen different concurrent fronts, leaving both sides unable to address any of the issues fully. Perhaps we just take a bite-size piece at a time in our pursuit of the truth. And I’ll try to provide a more timely response next time, should you respond.

>>I understand and agree.<<

First, by way of introduction, let me say that I understand why it would appear to you that Christ’s claim to BE truth is a conflation of terminology. You must admit this would follow naturally for someone who denies any metaphysical personality*. J But assume for the sake of argument that that a metaphysical personality exists (for you must grant that a finite being cannot posit with any certainty the non-existence of an infinite one). If you can picture even for a moment that this possibility exists, it becomes easier to follow Christ’s seemingly incongruous statements.

>>It seems here, and below with your asterisk-marked footnote, you may be admitting that there are things that are not philosophically "neutral" to discuss. If that is so, then you may be literally wasting your time in this dialog. I don't think that it is so. I think that most of what we'll disagree on can be examined objectively without the need for presupposing a certain viewpoint. I hope so, or else we're just arguing post hoc to legitimize (to ourselves, mostly) what we already want to believe is true, because we can't be persuaded by rational argument.

I don't think it's possible to ascribe personhood to a logical relationship. Logical relations and things like properties are the "basement" or foundation in metaphysics -- part of what philosophers refer to as universals, and there are some different ways that they describe them: nominalism, conceptualism and realism. Without getting off on a tangent, truth is a relation, or a correspondence between particulars. It is also universal because it is the relation or correspondence between an infinite number of particulars.

Personhood implies a mind (intentionality), and a mind implies more than one simple relation or property. Therefore, a mind occurs much higher up on the scale of metaphysics. Mind is not a universal. This is true whether or not I believe in God or an immaterial spirit. Minds are more than just one logical relation or property, but cannot be an infinite number of them. It's a non sequitur to say that relations between things are equal to the things themselves: walking is not just two legs, but the relationship between how they move in space-time; thinking is not just a brain, but how it functions in space-time. Another example: if Jesus is truth, and if it is true that evil exists, then Jesus is the evil that exists. I think we'd both agree that there is an error in the logic here.<<

In the same way, when he claims in the same unbelievable statement to be THE truth, is he saying that he is the representation of every physical truth? Of course not. But is he the only truth that matters in an ultimate, metaphysical sense?

>>But determining that which is true depends on knowing how logic works. Logically, Jesus can be "the way to avoid damnation" or "the only way to heaven" or something like that. Jesus cannot be "truth, period"...which is what people sometimes say or imply by referring to Jesus as truth. I think we probably agree on that.<<

I’ve found it a fascinating reinforcement of this concept that in many cases, people who reject Christ’s claims often begin to part ways with Christ as the source of Truth when a clear prohibition of scripture does not square with their lifestyle. They are unwilling to adhere to God’s moral law, and seeking to create their own moral code, they exchange the metaphysical “truth” of scripture for their own metaphysical “truth,” typically establishing moral boundaries that fit their lifestyle. Isn’t it interesting that modern attempts to invent a new morality seldom forge any rules that would de-legitimize the new moralist’s own behavior? The moral code they create always seems conveniently to square with their current behavior.

>>As I think you know, I'm not a moral relativist. Thus, a lot of what you said above doesn't apply to me. However, I can say that my lifestyle today versus my lifestyle at the time I was in church are pretty much identical. That is, I haven't taken up anything since leaving the church that was prohibited, and thus there was no incentive for decadence for me.

I'm not sure if you are in this boat, but lots of people don't believe that atheists exist. It's an interesting thing for me to hear that, as I wonder how these same people would react to me if I claimed that religion was just opiate for the masses, or said, "No one really believes in God. Deep down they know it's an invented device to help us live with the belief that there's cosmic significance to our existence, and it helps us cope with death and hardships. But they establish this to fit their lifestyle, their desire to believe that we're all more important than we really are..." It's a little insulting, isn't it? And presumptuous. Now, am I saying that you may not be correct about *some* people? No. But I'm sure the above parallel argument (that no one really believes in God) also applies about *some* people as well. I'll agree with you that sometimes it is the case that person X actually believes in the Bible and the interpretations of it given by Evangelicals, but really wants to "fornicate" and engage in "lasciviousness" (I love the KJV), and so might try to stop believing in the suddenly-inconvenient moral standard that it is against God's commandments.

However, it doesn't explain, at all, any transition in metaphysical beliefs from conservative/Evangelical Christian all the way to atheist. It may explain why certain people would relax their moral standards in order to assuage their own guilt. But, all one would need to do is transition from conservative/Evangelical Christian to a liberal Christian (e.g., Unitarian Universalist) or Deist or any of the other hundreds of options in between. There's no need to change one's metaphysical views in order to change one's moral views.

Also, consider this: does it really serve a purpose to invent/create something you don't *actually believe* is true? This implies that people reject what is true in order to do what they want, and yet if they really don't *believe* that what they reject was wrong, then they're self-delusional, and one would think, probably won't be able to live with a mind divided between what one wants to be true versus what one really thinks is true. How does it gain any relief to the sinner who pretends not to believe in his sin, but deep down still feels the guilt and shame?

The last part of your sentence could be (and probably was) used to explain why the church no longer puts people in stocks, no longer prohibits movies, music, technology, etc., etc., etc. That is, one could always say that freedom/liberty of conscience is really a "crutch" or a symptom/sign of the loss of spiritual goodness. Lots of people still refuse to allow women to wear pants or makeup, etc., etc., and they might look at you and say, "Isn't it interesting, Andy, that your 'new morality' is supposed to be grounded in God's grace and liberty, but it always legitimizes those things you already *want* to do?!?!?" The same logic works there. I think the premise is what's flawed.<<

Interestingly, while your moral realism proposes that there is a transcendent moral standard out there, in the same way that you would accuse those who follow a certain religion of “creating” their own codes through their own creativity, I believe that it’s impossible for you to prove that the moral realist is not doing ultimately the same thing—as every moral realist out there may not agree on morality, and must fabricate his own moral code. I think more problematic, though, is the issue of consequences. What consequences does Hitler suffer for his actions?

>>By your own beliefs, if *anyone* repents and asks God for forgiveness, they will suffer no consequences in the afterlife for their actions, yes? And thus the dilemma of many theistic beliefs is exposed -- you can't have both mercy and justice. You can have mercy for some and justice for others. To say that by Jesus' death, justice is served, is to pervert what justice means: Jesus was said to be morally perfect and thus innocent. Letting someone innocent "take the fall" for someone guilty is not just. It's merciful on the part of the one who volunteered to take the fall. <<

Perhaps we can relegate this to our next debate.

>>Probably a good idea. This can get convoluted in a hurry.<<

To say something “ought” to be a certain way becomes a meaningless distinction, simply a set of neurons firing in your brain at the present time, if there are no consequences. It immediately begs the questions, “Who says so?” and more importantly, “So what?” To put a moral standard out there that no one need follow might avoid the unpleasant thought of ultimate consequences in the afterlife, but it would seem there is little value in following this moral law, and little danger in breaking it. I would be eager to hear your thoughts on this, though, since I haven’t studied it except for a cursory reading online…

>>In responding to that, I would point out that there are no consequences for not believing that 2+2=4. Morality, to me, is the same way. You don't have to have consequences in an afterlife in order to make something true.

Causing harm is immoral. You (all of us) ought not cause harm.

That's just the simple truth of the matter. Trying to get into why, and how, and whether or not someone believes it or accepts it are all different issues. I would say, briefly, that just as singular objects have a metaphysical property about them that we call "1", so moral actions have a metaphysical property that we call "good" or "evil". The labels themselves may be arbitrary (imagine for a moment switching around the labels, or the numbers), but the underlying properties are not. And the underlying properties (causing harm, or alleviating suffering) exist independently of our human mind and desire.

In the same way that 2+2=4, morality is all about causing harm and recognizing the symmetry principle: you have to apply the standard of actions to others that you want applied to yourself.<<

Looking forward to more good discussions on Truth, Andy

Me too! Now it's your turn. Tag, you're it!

I'll post the responses later on. Since it took us a few months to get this dialog fully going, it'll probably be a while.

William Lane Craig on Richard Dawkins' "Ultimate Boeing 747" Argument

A caveat first: I'm not a huge fan of Dawkins or The God Delusion. However, Richard Dawkins brings up a good argument, "the ultimate Boeing 747 argument" in his last book, The God Delusion: it's basically the idea that if the complexity of the universe requires a designer, then the complexity of the designer becomes the next focus for argument. Fred Hoyle once famously said that abiogenesis was like claiming a tornado could hit a junkyard and assemble a working 747. The implication is that life is very complex (like a Boeing 747), and thus it couldn't have come about without another (intelligent) cause.

Dawkins' response: If complex things require intentionality or causation, then what about God? Isn't God more complex than the universe, given that God is capable of creating the universe? The basic response to this argument has so far been to claim that, no, in fact God is simple...just as William Lane Craig responds to Dawkins':

So Dawkins' argument for atheism is a failure even if we concede, for the sake of argument, all its steps. But, in fact, several of these steps are plausibly false. Take just step (3), for example. Dawkins' claim here is that one is not justified in inferring design as the best explanation of the complex order of the universe because then a new problem arises: who designed the designer?

This rejoinder is flawed on at least two counts. First, in order to recognize an explanation as the best, one needn't have an explanation of the explanation. This is an elementary point concerning inference to the best explanation as practiced in the philosophy of science. If archaeologists digging in the earth were to discover things looking like arrowheads and hatchet heads and pottery shards, they would be justified in inferring that these artifacts are not the chance result of sedimentation and metamorphosis, but products of some unknown group of people, even though they had no explanation of who these people were or where they came from. Similarly, if astronauts were to come upon a pile of machinery on the back side of the moon, they would be justified in inferring that it was the product of intelligent, extra-terrestrial agents, even if they had no idea whatsoever who these extra-terrestrial agents were or how they got there. In order to recognize an explanation as the best, one needn't be able to explain the explanation. In fact, so requiring would lead to an infinite regress of explanations, so that nothing could ever be explained and science would be destroyed. So in the case at hand, in order to recognize that intelligent design is the best explanation of the appearance of design in the universe, one needn't be able to explain the designer.

Secondly, Dawkins thinks that in the case of a divine designer of the universe, the designer is just as complex as the thing to be explained, so that no explanatory advance is made. This objection raises all sorts of questions about the role played by simplicity in assessing competing explanations; for example, how simplicity is to be weighted in comparison with other criteria like explanatory power, explanatory scope, and so forth. But leave those questions aside. Dawkins' fundamental mistake lies in his assumption that a divine designer is an entity comparable in complexity to the universe. As an unembodied mind, God is a remarkably simple entity. As a non-physical entity, a mind is not composed of parts, and its salient properties, like self-consciousness, rationality, and volition, are essential to it. In contrast to the contingent and variegated universe with all its inexplicable quantities and constants, a divine mind is startlingly simple. Certainly such a mind may have complex ideas—it may be thinking, for example, of the infinitesimal calculus—, but the mind itself is a remarkably simple entity. Dawkins has evidently confused a mind's ideas, which may, indeed, be complex, with a mind itself, which is an incredibly simple entity. Therefore, postulating a divine mind behind the universe most definitely does represent an advance in simplicity, for whatever that is worth.

On Craig's first point, the problem is that Intelligent Design Creationism is a joke, as it doesn't "detect" anything. Furthermore, although there are parallels in detecting intelligence from archeology, because we know what humans do and what to look for, the sort of intelligent designer implied by IDC is supernatural. Given that IDC also claims that our place in the cosmos is "privileged" -- the anthropic principle -- this would require the "designer" to have tuned the very physical constants that any naturalistic designer would be controlled by. Unlike in archeology, where we find artifacts that we can reliably infer intelligence or design in, as we have a basis for comparison (ourselves) with which we are intimately familiar, the "designer" in IDC would be so alien and preternatural as to remove our capability to even recognize its handiwork.

On Craig's second point, I think that it is Craig who is confused. Craig claims that a divine mind would be "an advance in simplicity" -- but this refers to philosophical economy: Ockham's razor, if you will. However, in addressing Dawkins' argument, Craig claims that an "unembodied mind" is somehow a simple entity. The problem with this argument is that even if I were to grant that an unembodied mind could exist, which is problematic, God is able to create a physical universe, and thus cause it to exist, in addition to thinking it. Furthermore, Craig's God not only creates the universe ex nihilo, He interacts with it and even becomes physical within it. If these things don't make God more complex than the product of His creation, then what could?

If something or someone X can create something or someone Y, then alter its properties post creation, then selectively become part of Y in a controlled manner, and none of these things can occur from Y -> X, but only from X -> Y, is X not more complex and less simple than Y?

I think Craig's premise is not only unsupported, but is almost self-evidently false: X is more complex than Y, and Craig's God is more complex than the universe it creates, alters, becomes one with...&c.

Therefore, Dawkins' argument stands: appealing to the argument from design in saying that complexity demands simplicity does not get us anywhere when the designer is purported to be more complex than that which is designed!

New evidence casts further doubt on Jesus as unique messiah

Although I don't bite as hard on the full Jesus-as-myth-only hypothesis as some do, I definitely reject claims of an inerrant historicity of the NT (and the OT, for that matter). There are many scholarly takes on the resurrection myth, which I reject as anything but myth, given the illogic of the idea of the doctrine of the Incarnation, among other things. Now, some of the further left ideas about Jesus being but one of many pagan agri-god resurrected saviors seem a bridge too far, but new evidence on an ancient (1st BCE) tablet definitely gives more context to the time in which Jesus lives, and deflates air out of the argument that his story is unique:

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

...

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

More on this as it becomes available.

I get email: Atheist professor and Christian student

Every once in a while, you receive emails that deserve a blog post to respond to. To me, if the email has either arguments that are poor and thus ought to be shown as such, or the topic is a common misconception, or you've received this email multiple times, that warrants a thoughtful response. Two recent examples:

1. "Muslims cannot be good Americans"
2. "America is a Christian nation"

Interestingly, my mother sent me the following email back on 1/12/08, and I just received it yesterday from a former high school chemistry student of mine. I changed a few things around, but largely used the text below to send this response to her.

It can be found in different forms online, and there are some who have taken the time to respond to it at length. Even though it reads like a bad Jack Chick tract, I think one thing in it is worth responding to: the proposed "contrast theodicy", aka the Augustinian privatio boni theodicy, to the problem of evil.

Interestingly, this part of the email is lifted from another email chain in which Albert Einstein was supposed to be the student; snopes.com debunked that a long time ago. Since I think there are a few things fallacious about the email, and since I think a lot of people read emails like these and hold misconceptions that this email affirms, I want to respond to it.

This is about a college freshman. I would not have had the maturity to do this.

God vs. Science (long but worth reading)

A science professor begins his school year with a lecture to the students, "Let me explain the problem science has with religion." The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

"You're a Christian, aren't you, son?"

"Yes sir," the student says.

"So you believe in God?"

"Absolutely."

"Is God good?"

"Sure! God's good."

"Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?"

"Yes."

"Are you good or evil?"

"The Bible says I'm evil."

The professor grins knowingly. "Aha! The Bible!" He considers for a moment. "Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?"

"Yes sir, I would."

"So you're good...!"

"I wouldn't say that."

"But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't."

The student does not answer, so the professor continues. "He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?"

The student remains silent.

"No, you can't, can you?" the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

"Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?"

"Er...yes," the student says.

"Is Satan good?"

The student doesn't hesitate on this one. "No."

"Then where does Satan come from?"

The student falters. "From God"

"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?"

"Yes, sir."

"Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?"

"Yes."

"So who created evil?" The professor continued, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil."

Again, the student has no answer.

"Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?"

The student squirms on his feet. "Yes."

"So who created them?"

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question. "Who created them?" There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. "Tell me," he continues onto another student. "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor, I do."

The old man stops pacing. "Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?"

"No sir. I've never seen Him."

"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"

"No, sir, I have not."

"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?"

"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."

"Yet you still believe in him?"

"Yes."

"According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?"

"Nothing," the student replies. "I only have my faith."

"Yes, faith," the professor repeats. "And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith."

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own. "Professor, is there such thing as heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat."

"And is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No sir, there isn't."

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. "You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees."

"Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it."

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.

"What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?"

"Yes," the professor replies without hesitation. "What is night if it isn't darkness?"

"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word."

" In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?"

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. "So what point are you making, young man?"

"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed."

The professor' s face cannot hide his surprise this time. "Flawed? Can you explain how?"

"You are working on the premise of duality," the student explains. "You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought."

"It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is
not the opposite of life, just the absence of it."

"Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?"

"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do."

"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"

The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.

"Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?"

The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided. "To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean."

The student looks around the room. "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?" The class breaks out into laughter. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir."

"So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?"

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. "I guess you'll have to take them on faith."

"Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life," the student continues. "Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?"

Now uncertain, the professor responds, "Of course, there is. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These
manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

If you read it all the way through and had a smile on your face when you finished, mail to your friends and family with the title "God vs. Science".

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2)

I hope you feel as dirty at the end of reading that as I did. The reason I say "dirty" is because this whole thing is such a caricature of reality and makes the atheistic position rude and mean in the form of the professor, while the theistic position is humble and polite in the form of the student. It is such a cheesy setup: the atheist is abusing his position to belittle a student while the student is showing great humility and courage in his manner of interaction and defense of his faith. Also, the dialog presents straw man arguments for atheism by presenting only a logical empiricist/positivist approach.

I also wanted to point out something else about the professor, besides his obvious meanness: he is an idiot. He begins the class by saying that science has a "problem with religion" but then goes on to make two separate arguments:

1. Evolution renders creationism false
2. The problem of evil renders theism false

The first reason that this professor is an idiot is that neither of these two is the same as science rendering religion false Creationism is only a subset of beliefs within only a few religious interpretations of a few religions! There are many religions which embrace evolution, and there are many non-theistic religions as well (e.g., Buddhism). By making the argument from evil, he is arguing from philosophy, not science.

The second reason that this professor is an idiot is that he is making an argument from logical positivism, but one completely distorted by needing to visually "see" anything that may be justified for belief. His criterion for warrant is absurd, and is completely unaware of how to respond when the kid asks him if he has "seen" evolution himself. Obviously, empiricism doesn't demand that we must ourselves visually see anything that warrants our belief, only that it be falsifiable and that someone (usually a scientist) has observed it, directly or indirectly, using any sort of instrumentation or test.

The third reason that this professor is an idiot is that he had no concept of how to respond to the claim that there "is no such thing as cold" or darkness or evil. Even using each of these as the absence of their dualist counterpart, one may and ought to respond that the words themselves serve as logical relations, or at least subjective perceptions: X is colder than Y, A is darker than B, Satan is more evil than an infant child...&c.

The fourth reason that this professor is an idiot is that he did not respond to the student's reiteration of the "contrast theodicy" in the way that I will:

The professor was quite "on the money" when he asked the student if he would cure others' sicknesses, and then pointed out that God does not do this, and so the student was "more good" than God in this way. This gets to the crux of the issue: does God have a moral duty and moral obligation to do good? (See here for more on that) Even if you grant that evil is "just" the absence of good, then any time and any where you point to an absence of good, then you are pointing to a dereliction of duty on God's part. So long story short, whether you call it "the problem of evil" or "the problem of absent goods" you still have a strong argument for atheism. When the student says "evil does not exist," after he has defined evil as Augustine's privatio boni (privation of good), he is, in effect, incoherent, because if this is true, then good should be everywhere in everything all the time. I sincerely doubt any thinking person, theist or otherwise, would assert such nonsense.

Those four things make the professor an idiot, and by extension, make the dialog a straw man argument for theists to present. Real arguments for atheism aren't presented here. If you are interested in more, there are some who have taken the time to respond to more of this dialog at greater length than I will.

Morality and atheism: an analysis -- 3 of 3

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.

Let's look again at the exchange with my friend via email:

BUT WHAT DOES WRONG MEAN? WHAT DOES RIGHT MEAN? WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOMETHING BEING RIGHT OR WRONG? AND WHY DOES THAT OR OUGHT THAT COMPELL TO ACT THIS OR THAT? FROM A THEISTIC PERSPECTIVE, IT MAKES SENSE. THERE IS A GOD WHO HAS THIS CHARACTER OF GOOD. WE ARE HIS CREATION AND OBJECT OF HIS CARE, AND OWE HIM LOYALTY AS HIM ON WHOM WE ARE UTTERLY DEPENDENT. HE IS ALSO THE JUDGE "WITH WHOM WE HAVE TO DO." THERE IS REASON TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS WILL. THERE IS REASON TO DO GOOD. IT ENTAILS THE DESIRE TO FULFILL OUR DESTINY AS THOSE MADE IN HIS IMAGE (TO BE GOOD), TO WALK IN INTIMACY WITH HIM, AND THE FEAR OF JUDGMENT FROM THE JUDGE

I think it should be clear that everything I've written in parts 1 and 2 was intended to deal with the question of whether or not, "from a theistic perspective, it [morality] makes sense." I attempted to argue that morality cannot be contingent upon God's nature, that God's nature is an unsatisfactory basis for moral justification, and that using God in talking about morality obfuscates, rather than enlightens. I further developed in part two on how using God in talking about morality brings up more questions than answers, given the inability for God to fit the criteria of moral virtue that our own (human) nature does.

In sitting here writing about morality, and in your sitting there reading about it, we both presuppose something important: that morality and moral motivation are amenable to reason. If, at a basic level, people will act how they feel like acting, despite rational arguments against this behavior, then both of us are wasting our time, in a cosmic sense. It is only in the hope that people can be swayed by argument and can respond to normative values that we spend time on this endeavor.

Two irreducible and irreplaceable components of morality are the fact-value and is-ought distinctions. If you cannot commit to the existence of ought or the existence of value (even if these are merely nominal or conceptual), then no moral argument can be made to move you, for all such arguments presuppose these two things. My approach in making a moral argument will be to talk about human nature, human desires, moral values and the principles of symmetry and justice. One of the things I need to assume for the sake of trying to persuade you rationally to act morally is that you have a value for your own life and/or that of others around you. If you (irrationally) conclude that your own life has no value and neither does anyone else's, then your feeling on this matter has precluded my ability to persuade you to rationally act on the values that I must assert exist.

It is here that theists often conflate atheism with a lack of value and/or lack of obligation. And they are correct in saying that if there is no value to anything, then moral realism is false and we are all really responding only to our genetic and evolutionary programming by acting on our desires and avoiding things that repulse us. If this latter scenario is correct, then we are wasting our time writing and reading about morality, and all we can hope for is that the instincts we have will serve us and our society well in the future. In fact, our "hope" in this case is just a "feeling" as well and does not necessarily conform to rational direction.

Now I want to address his question:

• Why does that, or ought that, compel us to act?

This is where meta-ethics is done and moral psychology comes in.

Now, some theists assert, belief in God is a necessary part of moral motivation. Let's put one thing out there first: even if this is true, we cannot will ourselves to believe in something that we are not genuinely persuaded to be true. That means, in effect, that unless the theist can give the atheist a genuinely reasonable argument that persuades the atheist to become a theist, then this assertion is not normative. And so, if belief in god is not possible for a given person, and if moral motivation is dependent upon god-belief, then obviously that person will lack moral motivation. It doesn't mean that they can motivate themselves to believe in something they find unreasonable in order to motivate themselves morally!

Second, the theist appeals to two things for moral motivation that may seem uniquely available to theists:

1. fear: if you don't obey God's commandments, you'll be punished for it
2. self-interest: if you do obey God's commandments, you'll be rewarded for it
   

Simply put, the components of fear and self-interest exist in the atheist's world just as much (if not more so) than a theist's. If this life is all that there is, then it takes on an extraordinary amount of value, given that it is all that we have. Morality is logically necessary for society to function, rather than fall apart into chaos. Therefore, one can be motivated as an atheist by fear of anarchy and chaos, as well as the self-interest of hoping for a stable, prosperous society to live in. In this way, atheists can use fear and self-interest just as much as a theist. I can make other arguments of a similar fashion, whether the fear is based on going to prison, or the self-interest is based on "let live in order to live" symmetry. Bentham argued along these same lines, in showing how self-interest was not contradicted by altruism, for the overall good of society.

When we use the word "good" we imply value. If one is an amoralist, and claims there is no real ultimate value to anything, then it would be rather difficult to convince said person to be motivated to act morally. By reframing the motivation into one of a reasoned argument, you are still forced to accept, at some point in time, that doing something good is of value to you or to those you care about. Here's a short simple example:

1. All of the following are good: wealth, health and happiness.
   
2. Human beings can cooperate in societies, or they can compete tribally
3. When human beings form societies, morality is necessary for order and stability
4. The lack of society, in the form of tribal competition, does not bring about the greatest amount of these goods (from 1) for the greatest number
5. Since the greatest good for the greatest number occurs within society, morality is necessary to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number
   

What this argument does is give context to "doing good" by showing that "doing good" brings about second-order goods, in the form of wealth, health and happiness. If someone denies the first premise, then of course we're back at square one. But denial of premise (1) would seem to pose a problem for a theist, as it seems that most religions accept that God wants good things for humans; what about belief in God could make (1) false?

In addition, it may simply be the case that morality is self-contained when it comes to motivation: you do what is good because it is the good thing to do; you shun what is evil because it is evil! This may be simple, but that doesn't disqualify it at all. In point of fact, this may be the best motivation of all: the nature of morality itself is normative and therefore motivates us. It does not require external factors or belief: when you know what is good, you do it; when you know what is evil, you avoid it.

• On meta-ethics

I intend to deal with exactly what the first two questions he asked mean:

1. What does wrong mean? What does right mean?
2. What is the significance of something being right or wrong?

One question that meta-ethics brings up is what our ontological commitments are. That is to say, what sorts of things exist, and what properties do they have? We do not have to (yet) "account" for the things we think exist in simply describing ontology, as this is the purview of metaphysics and requires a comprehensive analysis. The question that is relevant here is that of moral realism and how it may affect the existence or nonexistence of moral facts and moral properties.

The queerness of moral properties has been known for a long time, but is probably best summarized by John L. Mackie in 1977. The roundness of an object is given in the object's dimensions and relations to itself. This is an easy property for us to define and make sense of. What about the property of clumsiness? We all must admit it exists, but to define it, and to show how this property is instantiated and exemplified gets very complex. What may seem awkward and clumsy to one person may seem a least satisfactory to another. In addition, while the property of roundness is given in an object's relations to its own dimensions (its shape), what exactly about someone or something makes it clumsy? Its movements, yes? But exactly which movements? Therein lies the rub...

Let's consider the case of evil I've been using since the first post: drowning an otherwise-healthy infant. Is it my pushing an infant below the surface of water that is immoral? Obviously not, mothers bathe their children in the same way every day. Is it the moment at which the baby's heart and brain are clinically dead? Well, that seems to imply that if I was able to resuscitate the child to life, then I've done nothing immoral. So in the same way that it becomes difficult to pin down the exact dimension of movement that is clumsy, so it is difficult to pin down the exact dimension of action versus intent that is evil. This is part of the issue of the queerness of moral properties: how to locate and define them in the first place.

One of the things that I think causes theists to argue that God is necessary for, or at least comports well with, moral realism is that they recognize that God is attributed the same queer properties as morality is: transcendence and metaphysical ultimacy. That is to say, there seems to be nothing about space-time and physics that make moral properties what they are, and they don't seem to be contingent upon the world in which we live.

• If moral properties exist, and are metaphysically ultimate

If it is indeed true that moral properties exist in the same way the redness and roundness do, and are metaphysically ultimate (not contingent), like mathematical truths, then the answers to our questions about right and wrong are simple, although they may not be to our liking: 2 + 2 = 4 because by definition, that's just what it means to sum identities. In the same way, drowning an infant is wrong by definition, that's just what it means to be immoral. There is nothing "arbitrary" about this, it is the definition of what it is.

But wait, you say, that's not satisfactory! Perhaps it doesn't explain things to your liking, but if it's true, then it's true: morality may simply be about the issue of causing harm to others. That maybe all that it is, whether we like it or not. The problem we have with this is that even when we agree on the moral status of some act (like drowning a baby), we may come up with different justifications for why we feel it is so.

But is this problem unique for morality? Not at all. Think, for instance of defining something scientific, like the unit of length. We all use different systems of measurement, but the objects being measured, and their property of length -- assuming it is constant -- these things are not subjective, but objective. Are our own systems of measurement arbitrary? Absolutely! But, the object that we measure is not arbitrary!

Perhaps all we're doing with the different schools of thought on morality is measuring the fundamental harm that something causes, or looking at it from different angles, but we aren't changing the fact that morality is still all about harm!

Moving on to his second question: what is the significance of it? A simple answer exists: right and wrong possess their own virtuous force! The significance of something being good is its goodness, which motivates us and defines its value. The significance of something being evil is its badness, which also motivates us (away from it) and defines its (negative) value. If more significance is needed, such as fear or self-interest, then I've already covered that, above.

This is one answer to my friend's question, although we may not like it because it is "too simple".

• If moral properties exist, and are contingent

Another possible answer to my friend's question about what right and wrong "are" could be that they are related to some objective facts about the world which are not metaphysically ultimate (like mathematical truths and analytical truths). Morality could be based on human nature and evolution. Indeed, it seems to be the case that humans can all agree on a few things (if you disagree, feel free to point out which premises you find faulty):

1. Certain facts about human nature give us certain desires and needs.
2. We rank or order these desires and needs into a sort of hierarchy. The need for food and water are foundational to our own minute-by-minute survival, while the desire to procreate is contingent on these first-order needs being met.
3. We either: 1) assign value to these things, or 2) recognize that there is intrinsic value to them. This distinction is drawn for someone who may be inclined towards nominalism (1) versus realism (2) when it comes to properties and relations.
   
4. When actions and behaviors promote our values, these are "good" and thus are morally what we ought to do. When actions and behaviors detract from, or go against these values, they are "evil" and thus are morally what we ought not do. This seems to follow definitionally from the concept of something having positive or negative value to us.

Imagine for a moment that pulling off someone's arm caused them to experience an orgasm, and they immediately regrew the limb. For that person, would pulling off their arm be an immoral act? It seems clear that the facts and restrictions about human nature; namely, how we experience pain and pleasure, directly influence our concept of morality. All you have to accept is that pain and pleasure form the basis of moral value, given human nature and the desire and need to avoid pain and the desire and need to enjoy pleasure. Thus the basis for many ethical theories involving utilitarianism.

Besides this simple but easily-followed layout of how we get the idea of objective moral properties that are contingent upon human nature, we can talk about how our moral faculties evolved and what role biology plays in the exercise of morality. Please notice that we're going from what good and evil are to how we recognize them.

On a recent Point of Inquiry, Marc D. Hauser spoke of how our moral faculties may be like our grammatical faculties -- cognitive modules that either develop properly or don't, but are entirely based on biology and evolutionary logic. He and Peter Singer summarize this view in a nice article hosted by the CFI. His co-author (Singer) has also written some great pieces on this same issue -- the evolution of a moral sense -- for NYT Magazine, among others. (also see this, this and this)

Now, what these scientific explanations really do is give plausible mechanisms to explain the evolution of a moral sense in humanity, including such evolutionary oddities as kin altruism. This, in turn, explains why we have an innate disgust at the idea of child rape and a universal set of moral principles involving avoidance of suffering and harm. What this does not do is give a meta-ethical justification as to whether or not causing harm without justification (i.e., self-defense, warfare) is actually wrong.

For that, we return to the question of whether foundational concepts form the basis of morality:
"Causing harm without necessity is wrong," or something of the like. The best answer seems to be that morality is all about causing harm, and that, by definition, humans ought not cause harm without justification (self-defense or the law).

In conclusion, the answers I present to my friend's questions are:

1. Wrong and right refer to actions or behaviors that we ought not do, or ought to do, respectively. Either these things are metaphysically ultimate, such as 2 + 2 = 4, and therefore not contingent, or they are objective facts founded on human nature, based on the concepts of pain and suffering. If they are contingent, then, they are contingent upon human nature; the existence of these values flows from our own human natures: value is directly related to human needs and desires. These are universal and absolute, given that survival and death are universal human experiences, but may or may not be metaphysically ultimate. Either way, they are independent of the question of God's existence.
2. The significance of rightness or wrongness is, as Kant would say, "the thing in itself": the value of acting morally is its own significance. If this sounds circular it is meant to be so, because the entire idea of morality is self-contained: as we have seen, appealing to authority or fear are not the same as appealing to one's sense of duty and obligation. Doing good is, itself, good (valuable/significant) and doing evil is, itself, evil (it works in opposition to that which we value and find significant). One must derive value from "doing what is good/doing what one ought to do," nor find reason to oppose "doing what is evil/doing what one ought not do"

And so it seems the crux of the issue is this:

• If moral realism is true, then there are moral facts and objective moral properties.
• If moral realism is not true, then "moral facts" may simply mean that certain statements or beliefs about morality are just how humans feel about them -- this is the essence of cultural relativism
  
• If moral realism is not true, then we have no real cause to argue about morality, since you are simply affirming how you believe when you say, "X is good," or "Y is evil," and so am I. Our beliefs cannot be fundamentally proven right or wrong, and so moral disagreement may never be resolved.
  

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.