Script for "Objective Morality vs. Christianity"
Atheism is often criticised for not having or providing a basis for an objective morality. Whenever an atheist points out some horrible act or sentiment in the bible and calls it immoral, the comeback is often not much more thoughtful or sophisticated than pointing out that atheists don’t have any good basis for an objective moral standard by which to judge whether or not something is moral, and therefore have no good grounds upon which to make such an evaluation. The idea of an objective morality is also used as one of the pillars, along with cosmology and design, of proving that there simply and logically must be a god. But just like those other ‘proofs’, objective morality is unhelpful in any argument for the truth of Christianity or any particular religion. In fact, Christian views of objective morality are so problematic and are such a tangled mess of double think and special pleading that it amazes me that Christians want to even talk about it.
With the publication of his book on the topic, atheist Sam Harris recently went up against Christian William Lane Craig in a debate on objective morality. Harris advocates an objective morality, from an atheistic and scientific standpoint. In listening to the debate several times, I’ve found myself more interested in Craig’s arguments supporting a theistic basis for objective morality, because I’m enthralled by what he DIDN”T bring up, and especially what he avoided bringing up or answering. There’s a good stretch of the debate in which he goes out of his way to divert attention away from Harris’ bringing up the moral problems of the Christian god, stating emphatically that the Christian god and its actions are NOT the topic of the night’s debate, and therefore that he’s under no obligation to respond to anything to do with that. Strictly speaking he was right, I guess. The topic under debate was related to theism and atheism, so by only bringing up arguments to do with theism, rather than Judeo-Christianity specifically, Craig was addressing the topic of the debate. But the problem is that in other situations, Craig and countless others use the very same arguments to advocate for a specifically Christian, not simply “theistic”, view of objective morality, so it’s time to scrutinize those arguments, to see just how far they support a Christian view.
For the sake of argument I’m going to accept and go along with pretty much all of Craig’s arguments from the Harris debate, for a while here to see where they lead us.
First I’ll concede to Craig by taking the position, as some atheists do and some don’t, that there IS indeed an absolute objective moral standard by which to judge human behaviour. For the sake of brevity I’ll jump straight to conceding one of Craig’s key points; that theism provides the best basis for an objective morality, far better than atheism. There has to be a moral law giver. Stay with me atheists, I’m going even further:
all of that is being asserted out of thin air without much to back it up, but never mind…I'm going to grant all of that as well as if it had been absolutely proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt. Ok, that is indeed a god after all, and all morality, which is objective, is reflective of the nature and essential character of the objective moral law giver.
So, lets say that on my hypothetical scoreboard, Craig won the debate, and that he convinced me on all of those statements there. That just about makes me a Christian now, doesn’t it? No, not at all, and to demonstrate why, let’s follow Craig even further here, because if I do, it won’t be long before I’m told among other things, that the moral law giver that he’s proven to me must exist, has given humanity his written word, passed down throughout history, showing us his character. (For want of a direct quote to that effect from Craig I’m going to take the risk of strawmanning him to that extent. I think it’s not stretching the friendship to do that.) So surely, to know about morality, all we need do is look at this writing that the objective moral law giver has left with us, and we’ll be able to find out about its character and learn what is and isn’t moral. Surely, if it is what it claims to be, it will contain the answers to the deepest and most complex moral questions that we have.
So, we flick through a few pages and it turns out that this objective moral law giver, consistent with its holy and loving nature, desires that certain women and girls be burned to death as punishment for sexual immorality. And that others women in similar circumstances should be stoned to death! And even before I can give another example every Christian on youtube groans, because NonStampCollector has gone there again, twisting the meaning of scripture, putting an atheistic spin on it, taking the verses out of context to suit his atheistic agenda.
Well, I’m not being facetious. This is, honestly, a serious question to raise if we’re going to take Dr. Craig seriously and if I’m going to follow his arguments anywhere beyond a waffly faceless theism. These particular examples of obscene barbaric injustice are far from being isolated cases, and Craig said that “God’s commandments must be consistent with his holy and loving nature”. Well, there is simply no sense in saying that, unless we are happy to look at the commandments that He has issued and are happy to consider them the objective moral standards of a being that is holy and loving.
And a problem develops for me when I try to do that, coz I don’t think that burning people to death or sending wild animals to maul them to death is either holy or loving. I don’t think it ever was or ever could be, but then I’m an atheist, aren’t I. OK, drop my judgment on the use of the word ‘holy’. I don’t think it’s loving. In fact, I think it’s the polar opposite.
And we’ve barely even scratched the surface. We read further and see that the moral law giver implored people to keep slaves.
Is that representative of what objective morality is? No. Humphhhh. But he did implore people to do that, yes, and his commandments must be consistent with his loving nature. Yes. But slavery is not consistent with his loving nature. No
In case you can’t see a problem with that, let’s go further.
He ordered people to kill members of other faiths.
Is that therefore objectively moral? Is it a moral duty? No,
but the loving moral law giver commanded it, yes,
and his commands constitute our moral duties.
Same thing in regard to murdering non-virgin brides.
Objectively moral? No. Objectively immoral – yeah probably, yet mandated by the moral law giver.
The moral law giver implored people to not steal.
Is that representative of what objective morality is? Yes. Oh, good! How do you know?! Because the moral law giver of the universe said so in the bible.
So some of this god’s moral commandments are indicative of objective morality, and others aren’t. The particular god you’ve suggested I accept as the objective moral law giver turns out to not be worthy of the name due to the amazing volume of exceptions and excuses that are necessary to justify that view, and in fact if we go and look at his “nice” moral demands as you no doubt insist we do, like this QUOTE, then this god condemns himself as immoral by his own standard, due to his ordering that people treat each other with the utmost cruelty. No, It’s easy to see that this is madness. Having had a look at this candidate, in my search for the objective moral law giver that I’ve had proven to me must exist, and having noticed what I have already about this one, the most sensible and obvious course of action to now take would be to write it off and look elsewhere. Why on earth would that be a problem?
Christians, have you, for even a moment, ever considered that the logically necessary objective moral law giver might NOT be the god of the bible? That there could be a godly moral law giver, who is also the fine-tuner of the universe and the designer of life, that isn’t the god mentioned in the bible?
You owe it to yourself to consider the question, especially given that the god of the bible is demonstrably a psychopathic, insane violent self-obsessed god of war written of by demonstrably ignorant bloodthirsty people in the superstitious bronze age,
We atheists keep hearing that we have no sound basis for morality.
Yet the basis of your morality, to whom you ascribe the source of your moral contention that murder is bad, is a being that murders. You ascribe the source of your moral contention that all human life is worthwhile, to a being that again and again treats human life with utter contempt. You ascribe the source of your moral contention that kindness is good, to a god that inflicts deadly disease and slow suffering deaths on a whim when its wishes aren’t carried out. You ascribe the source of your moral contention that justice should be fair, to a being that dishes out the most outrageous injustices, and boasts about it.
When someone like me looks openly and objectively at the demands made by this god, and ascertains that they are so polluted with obscenely cruel and sick demands that they indeed could NOT be representative of the highest moral standard of the universe, you make excuses for them and the kind of misery that’s their inevitable and intended result, and then complain that I’m taking them out of context, that I’m spinning them to suit a pre-existing agenda, or that I’m incapable of understanding them.
You’re talking about things like the order to burn living people to death being in line with objective morality, and coming from a moral law giver who is inherently kind.
You’re talking about throwing rocks at living people until they are dead as a result, being in line with the requirements of an objective moral law giver who is inherently merciful.
Oh, that sort of punishment was objectively right in another context, yet objectively wrong in a contemporary context, meaning that if anyone did that now, it would be immoral. Objectively.
Objective? or Contextual? Don’t you see that the instant you invoke context, your claim that there is an objective moral standard is destroyed, because if killing people by throwing rocks at them is morally permissible in some contexts, then what on earth isn’t?! If deliberately sending wild animals to maul people to death is morally permissible in some contexts, then what on earth isn’t?! The most hideously cruel and sick acts, you are clearly telling us, can be morally good, depending on the context. So there is no… objective standard of objective morality. It’s subjectively objective. There’s nothing so evil, cruel, barbaric or disgusting that this god of yours couldn’t be OK with in certain circumstances, because your understanding of morality implies that if that god did it, it would simply be moral. Nothing is absolutely, objectively immoral because morality under this model is subject to the opinion of god at that time. It’s all circumstantial. How can the objectivity of an objective moral be subject to context?
Why do we allow this bullshit to have a seat at the discussion? Surely, the ongoing human debate about morality and ethics and human behaviour would be greatly enhanced if this bronze-age bullshit was taken out of the equation. This book and the insane mental contortions and backflips that it forces Christians to perform surely does more to pollute discussion of the issue of morality than it contributes.
Jesus?: Jesus changed nothing, despite saying lots of nice things, coz in case you’d forgotten, not only did Jesus specifically instruct his followers to continue to follow every letter of the old testament law, Jesus and the father are one. It’s the same being, according to you, and according to scripture, and according to Jesus. The kind father who sent his only begotten son, is the insane sadistic monster who sent his only begotten bears and lions to rip living people to shreds for petty misdemeanours, too. And what did Jesus save us from? From the insane god-the-father’s dishing out of infinite punishment for finite, mostly victimless, crimes – That’s right – a being that murdered babies is going to condemn most of us to hell on the grounds that we have even a single moral flaw- and such serious moral flaws as looking upon a woman with lust in one’s heart. That’s an insane moral requirement anyway, let alone when the being that is going to condemn you to eternal torture for it is guilty of mass child-murder.
I value the moral precepts that humankind has risen to through centuries of reasoned debate, discussion and agreement since the time these insane scriptures were written. Among other reasons, I value them because I know and love many perfectly good human beings that your Yahweh would once have ordered be stoned to death for things they’ve done that simply don’t matter in ANY practical sense. If you won’t accept that to have killed such people in such a way is anything less than absolutely fucking barbaric and definitively evil, then shame on you. Perhaps it’s YOU who ought to be asking serious questions about basis of their morality, not me as an atheist.
Your argument, when it gets to Yahweh, becomes an insane jumble of excuses, special pleading, circular reasoning and simply and conveniently redefining what is moral depending on what section of the bible it’s from, … All because you’re caught up in the delusion that the insane character in the bible is the only viable candidate for the god that you are convinced must exist. Believe in a god by all means, it’s just that when you put this psychopath Yahweh in the mix it becomes an absolute mess. I’m suggesting that you take Yahweh out of the mix, and start making sense again.
The fact is this: there is simply no link between the however-well-logically-arrived at need for there to be a god, as a creator or a designer or an objective moral law giver, and the god of Christianity. William Lane Craig and others like him make arguments that are designed to get us to accept the necessity of the existence of a creative and moral force, and then hope that we’ll miss the non-sequitor of linking deism directly to judeo-christianity as if one logically follows from the other.
Anyone who argues this way is either being deliberately misleading, or is simply unaware of how badly-thought-out this line of reasoning is.
So, is there an objective standard of morality? I don’t know. There are good arguments on both sides of that question. There is NOTHING WRONG with ‘I don’t know’.
There very well could be an objective moral law giving god, or gods. I don’t know that either, and that’s not an admission, it’s an assertion.
But even if I did come to the conclusion that there is one, even if I accepted completely that a personal god exists: there is NOTHING that points towards Yahweh.
The violent and disgusting contents of the bible only confirm that the only relevance Yahweh has in this debate, is as a measure of how far human morality has come, and to show how bad things could get, were we to only look to ancient scriptures for the answers to our most important questions.
Thanks for listening.
With the publication of his book on the topic, atheist Sam Harris recently went up against Christian William Lane Craig in a debate on objective morality. Harris advocates an objective morality, from an atheistic and scientific standpoint. In listening to the debate several times, I’ve found myself more interested in Craig’s arguments supporting a theistic basis for objective morality, because I’m enthralled by what he DIDN”T bring up, and especially what he avoided bringing up or answering. There’s a good stretch of the debate in which he goes out of his way to divert attention away from Harris’ bringing up the moral problems of the Christian god, stating emphatically that the Christian god and its actions are NOT the topic of the night’s debate, and therefore that he’s under no obligation to respond to anything to do with that. Strictly speaking he was right, I guess. The topic under debate was related to theism and atheism, so by only bringing up arguments to do with theism, rather than Judeo-Christianity specifically, Craig was addressing the topic of the debate. But the problem is that in other situations, Craig and countless others use the very same arguments to advocate for a specifically Christian, not simply “theistic”, view of objective morality, so it’s time to scrutinize those arguments, to see just how far they support a Christian view.
For the sake of argument I’m going to accept and go along with pretty much all of Craig’s arguments from the Harris debate, for a while here to see where they lead us.
First I’ll concede to Craig by taking the position, as some atheists do and some don’t, that there IS indeed an absolute objective moral standard by which to judge human behaviour. For the sake of brevity I’ll jump straight to conceding one of Craig’s key points; that theism provides the best basis for an objective morality, far better than atheism. There has to be a moral law giver. Stay with me atheists, I’m going even further:
all of that is being asserted out of thin air without much to back it up, but never mind…I'm going to grant all of that as well as if it had been absolutely proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt. Ok, that is indeed a god after all, and all morality, which is objective, is reflective of the nature and essential character of the objective moral law giver.
So, lets say that on my hypothetical scoreboard, Craig won the debate, and that he convinced me on all of those statements there. That just about makes me a Christian now, doesn’t it? No, not at all, and to demonstrate why, let’s follow Craig even further here, because if I do, it won’t be long before I’m told among other things, that the moral law giver that he’s proven to me must exist, has given humanity his written word, passed down throughout history, showing us his character. (For want of a direct quote to that effect from Craig I’m going to take the risk of strawmanning him to that extent. I think it’s not stretching the friendship to do that.) So surely, to know about morality, all we need do is look at this writing that the objective moral law giver has left with us, and we’ll be able to find out about its character and learn what is and isn’t moral. Surely, if it is what it claims to be, it will contain the answers to the deepest and most complex moral questions that we have.
So, we flick through a few pages and it turns out that this objective moral law giver, consistent with its holy and loving nature, desires that certain women and girls be burned to death as punishment for sexual immorality. And that others women in similar circumstances should be stoned to death! And even before I can give another example every Christian on youtube groans, because NonStampCollector has gone there again, twisting the meaning of scripture, putting an atheistic spin on it, taking the verses out of context to suit his atheistic agenda.
Well, I’m not being facetious. This is, honestly, a serious question to raise if we’re going to take Dr. Craig seriously and if I’m going to follow his arguments anywhere beyond a waffly faceless theism. These particular examples of obscene barbaric injustice are far from being isolated cases, and Craig said that “God’s commandments must be consistent with his holy and loving nature”. Well, there is simply no sense in saying that, unless we are happy to look at the commandments that He has issued and are happy to consider them the objective moral standards of a being that is holy and loving.
And a problem develops for me when I try to do that, coz I don’t think that burning people to death or sending wild animals to maul them to death is either holy or loving. I don’t think it ever was or ever could be, but then I’m an atheist, aren’t I. OK, drop my judgment on the use of the word ‘holy’. I don’t think it’s loving. In fact, I think it’s the polar opposite.
And we’ve barely even scratched the surface. We read further and see that the moral law giver implored people to keep slaves.
Is that representative of what objective morality is? No. Humphhhh. But he did implore people to do that, yes, and his commandments must be consistent with his loving nature. Yes. But slavery is not consistent with his loving nature. No
In case you can’t see a problem with that, let’s go further.
He ordered people to kill members of other faiths.
Is that therefore objectively moral? Is it a moral duty? No,
but the loving moral law giver commanded it, yes,
and his commands constitute our moral duties.
Same thing in regard to murdering non-virgin brides.
Objectively moral? No. Objectively immoral – yeah probably, yet mandated by the moral law giver.
The moral law giver implored people to not steal.
Is that representative of what objective morality is? Yes. Oh, good! How do you know?! Because the moral law giver of the universe said so in the bible.
So some of this god’s moral commandments are indicative of objective morality, and others aren’t. The particular god you’ve suggested I accept as the objective moral law giver turns out to not be worthy of the name due to the amazing volume of exceptions and excuses that are necessary to justify that view, and in fact if we go and look at his “nice” moral demands as you no doubt insist we do, like this QUOTE, then this god condemns himself as immoral by his own standard, due to his ordering that people treat each other with the utmost cruelty. No, It’s easy to see that this is madness. Having had a look at this candidate, in my search for the objective moral law giver that I’ve had proven to me must exist, and having noticed what I have already about this one, the most sensible and obvious course of action to now take would be to write it off and look elsewhere. Why on earth would that be a problem?
Christians, have you, for even a moment, ever considered that the logically necessary objective moral law giver might NOT be the god of the bible? That there could be a godly moral law giver, who is also the fine-tuner of the universe and the designer of life, that isn’t the god mentioned in the bible?
You owe it to yourself to consider the question, especially given that the god of the bible is demonstrably a psychopathic, insane violent self-obsessed god of war written of by demonstrably ignorant bloodthirsty people in the superstitious bronze age,
We atheists keep hearing that we have no sound basis for morality.
Yet the basis of your morality, to whom you ascribe the source of your moral contention that murder is bad, is a being that murders. You ascribe the source of your moral contention that all human life is worthwhile, to a being that again and again treats human life with utter contempt. You ascribe the source of your moral contention that kindness is good, to a god that inflicts deadly disease and slow suffering deaths on a whim when its wishes aren’t carried out. You ascribe the source of your moral contention that justice should be fair, to a being that dishes out the most outrageous injustices, and boasts about it.
When someone like me looks openly and objectively at the demands made by this god, and ascertains that they are so polluted with obscenely cruel and sick demands that they indeed could NOT be representative of the highest moral standard of the universe, you make excuses for them and the kind of misery that’s their inevitable and intended result, and then complain that I’m taking them out of context, that I’m spinning them to suit a pre-existing agenda, or that I’m incapable of understanding them.
You’re talking about things like the order to burn living people to death being in line with objective morality, and coming from a moral law giver who is inherently kind.
You’re talking about throwing rocks at living people until they are dead as a result, being in line with the requirements of an objective moral law giver who is inherently merciful.
Oh, that sort of punishment was objectively right in another context, yet objectively wrong in a contemporary context, meaning that if anyone did that now, it would be immoral. Objectively.
Objective? or Contextual? Don’t you see that the instant you invoke context, your claim that there is an objective moral standard is destroyed, because if killing people by throwing rocks at them is morally permissible in some contexts, then what on earth isn’t?! If deliberately sending wild animals to maul people to death is morally permissible in some contexts, then what on earth isn’t?! The most hideously cruel and sick acts, you are clearly telling us, can be morally good, depending on the context. So there is no… objective standard of objective morality. It’s subjectively objective. There’s nothing so evil, cruel, barbaric or disgusting that this god of yours couldn’t be OK with in certain circumstances, because your understanding of morality implies that if that god did it, it would simply be moral. Nothing is absolutely, objectively immoral because morality under this model is subject to the opinion of god at that time. It’s all circumstantial. How can the objectivity of an objective moral be subject to context?
Why do we allow this bullshit to have a seat at the discussion? Surely, the ongoing human debate about morality and ethics and human behaviour would be greatly enhanced if this bronze-age bullshit was taken out of the equation. This book and the insane mental contortions and backflips that it forces Christians to perform surely does more to pollute discussion of the issue of morality than it contributes.
Jesus?: Jesus changed nothing, despite saying lots of nice things, coz in case you’d forgotten, not only did Jesus specifically instruct his followers to continue to follow every letter of the old testament law, Jesus and the father are one. It’s the same being, according to you, and according to scripture, and according to Jesus. The kind father who sent his only begotten son, is the insane sadistic monster who sent his only begotten bears and lions to rip living people to shreds for petty misdemeanours, too. And what did Jesus save us from? From the insane god-the-father’s dishing out of infinite punishment for finite, mostly victimless, crimes – That’s right – a being that murdered babies is going to condemn most of us to hell on the grounds that we have even a single moral flaw- and such serious moral flaws as looking upon a woman with lust in one’s heart. That’s an insane moral requirement anyway, let alone when the being that is going to condemn you to eternal torture for it is guilty of mass child-murder.
I value the moral precepts that humankind has risen to through centuries of reasoned debate, discussion and agreement since the time these insane scriptures were written. Among other reasons, I value them because I know and love many perfectly good human beings that your Yahweh would once have ordered be stoned to death for things they’ve done that simply don’t matter in ANY practical sense. If you won’t accept that to have killed such people in such a way is anything less than absolutely fucking barbaric and definitively evil, then shame on you. Perhaps it’s YOU who ought to be asking serious questions about basis of their morality, not me as an atheist.
Your argument, when it gets to Yahweh, becomes an insane jumble of excuses, special pleading, circular reasoning and simply and conveniently redefining what is moral depending on what section of the bible it’s from, … All because you’re caught up in the delusion that the insane character in the bible is the only viable candidate for the god that you are convinced must exist. Believe in a god by all means, it’s just that when you put this psychopath Yahweh in the mix it becomes an absolute mess. I’m suggesting that you take Yahweh out of the mix, and start making sense again.
The fact is this: there is simply no link between the however-well-logically-arrived at need for there to be a god, as a creator or a designer or an objective moral law giver, and the god of Christianity. William Lane Craig and others like him make arguments that are designed to get us to accept the necessity of the existence of a creative and moral force, and then hope that we’ll miss the non-sequitor of linking deism directly to judeo-christianity as if one logically follows from the other.
Anyone who argues this way is either being deliberately misleading, or is simply unaware of how badly-thought-out this line of reasoning is.
So, is there an objective standard of morality? I don’t know. There are good arguments on both sides of that question. There is NOTHING WRONG with ‘I don’t know’.
There very well could be an objective moral law giving god, or gods. I don’t know that either, and that’s not an admission, it’s an assertion.
But even if I did come to the conclusion that there is one, even if I accepted completely that a personal god exists: there is NOTHING that points towards Yahweh.
The violent and disgusting contents of the bible only confirm that the only relevance Yahweh has in this debate, is as a measure of how far human morality has come, and to show how bad things could get, were we to only look to ancient scriptures for the answers to our most important questions.
Thanks for listening.