The podcast archive on Premier Christian Radio is a well organised, rich source of interesting discussions between theists and others. Today I downloaded and listened to Paul Orton and David Robertson discussing the moral argument. That is, the argument that there are immutable, universal moral absolutes, and therefore God exists.
The discussion opens with an assertion by the presenter, Justin Brierley, that we all accept moral ‘facts’ (scare quotes based on his intonation) about the world: certain things are right and certain things are wrong. He then states that that can only be the case if there is something on which to ground the facts, and that has to be God. A few minutes later he softens this to
“Most people appear to believe in moral absolutes, i.e. some things are definitely right and other things are definitely wrong, and that [moral absolute truth] would hold whether we happened to believe it or not. Can those kinds of beliefs exist without God in the equation? Or do we live in a world where there are no moral absolutes, and our morality is purely a product of purposeless evolution? That is certainly the view that someone like Richard Dawkins would be compelled to hold, as what we might call a materialistic atheist. He doesn’t believe in anything beyond the material, physical world. However complex it may be, that is all we ultimately reduce to.”
Brierley has presented a false dichotomy, laced with loaded terms like ‘reduce’ and ‘purposeless’. His first mistake was to predicate the existence of God upon his baseless assertion that there are moral absolutes. In effect he is trying simply to assert God into existence. Even if moral absolutes were proven to exist, that in itself would not necessitate any connection with the God in whom Brierley professes belief. Besides, Brierley has not demonstrated the existence of moral absolutes. Again, he has simply asserted that they exist.
David Robertson asks, “How do we know whether [externally imposed human morals] are right or wrong?” and illustrates his rhetorical question with the hypothetical example of a majority supporting the racist and xenophobic policies of the BNP. Robertson means that it isn’t morally right to do something simply because people think it should be done, and so moral absolutes cannot come from society.
Both Robertson and Brierley make the error of thinking they can know something that is outside their minds, i.e. that there are moral absolutes that are hard-coded into the way the world is. Yet, like the rest of us, they have only their minds as tools with which to probe the world around them. Therefore they are claiming to know something that they cannot possibly know. Typical theists, they start from the assumption that they have the answers, and construct arguments to fit their pre-existing conclusions.
The atheist starts with no assumptions at all. He looks for moral absolutes and finds no evidence that there are such things. Further, he recognises that proof of the existence of moral absolutes, should it ever be found, would not necessarily provide the slightest clue as to where those absolutes might have come from. Theists leap straight from their ‘moral absolutes’ assertion to the Judaeo-Christian God. Some theists, including David Robertson, have the audacity to suggest that the modern world’s morality arises from Christian teaching. Tell that to the millions infected with HIV as a direct result of the Catholic Church’s meddling in Africa.
I do not think the existence of moral absolutes has ever been demonstrated. Rather, I think morality comes from our responses to situations, real or hypothetical. Why is slavery wrong? It is wrong because we can consider the viewpoint of the slave, his liberty and dignity stolen from him. Murder is wrong for the same reason. We can empathise with the victim and we recognise his right not to be murdered, just as we would not wish anyone to murder us. Those are easy examples. Another such example is child murder. Who would deem it morally acceptable to murder one’s child in order to prove loyalty to a capricious dictator? No-one in their right mind, I would hope. Yet was that not exactly what Abraham, the founder of the three great monotheisms including Christianity, is held up to us as a shining example for being prepared to do? Yes, God stayed his viciously murderous hand at the last second, but that does not legitimise either Abraham’s intended foul act nor the brutal cruelty of the despot who coerced him into it.
Mr Robertson and Mr Brierley, don’t you dare foist your disgusting celestial dictator on me. Don’t you dare assert that I would not know the difference between right and wrong but for his filthy interference in the natural world. Don’t you dare suggest that if it were not for his ordination of divine laws I would not be able to treat fellow humans and other sentient creatures with the compassion and respect that I myself would wish to receive. Such a suggestion smacks of breathtaking arrogance on your part. Moreover, it is a moral abomination to insult the ability of human beings to recognise what is right and what is wrong without supposed divine, dictatorially binding assistance. How do I know that it is a moral abomination? I know because the thought of making such an assertion, and of thus looking down my theistic nose at my fellows, turns my stomach.
I was a little surprised that Euthyphro’s dilemma did not figure in the discussion. The argument goes like this. If God is deemed to be good, then to what standard higher than Himself is He compared? If there be no higher standard than God, and the ideas of good and bad exist because God decreed them, then it is meaningless to say that God is good. If, on the other hand, moral absolutes exist against which we can show God to be good, then we do not need God to exist in order for good and bad to exist, for they are logically anterior to God. However, although the dilemma is interesting, if there be no moral absolutes (as indeed I believe there are not) then it is little more than a word game.
Brierley returns to his point about purposeless evolution. He appears incredulous that simple atoms could give rise to morality. This is of course nothing more than the old argument from personal incredulity that held sway for so long before Darwin. We know that brains have evolved slowly over millions of years by natural selection, and we have no evidence that minds are anything other than the product of evolved brains. Morality is a product of minds, which can recognise the existence of, and empathise with, other minds. So, no matter how personally incredulous we might be, we have no evidence to suggest anything beyond the material, physical universe which we observe. We certainly have no right to bandy around baseless assertions about supernatural beings that ordained fictitious moral laws.
David Robertson makes plain his Christian fundamentalism, observing that transgressors will one day answer to God for their sins, and so he (Mr Robertson) need not worry too much about them for the time being. He asserts repeatedly that we are made in God’s image and it is thus that we derive our morals. This assertion is made without evidence and therefore need not be taken seriously.
“Would that you could be like me, apart from these chains,” says David Robertson, expressing his sincere wish that Paul Orton become a Christian. Mr Robertson would have Mr Orton bow and scrape to a ruthless dictator, who created him imperfect and then made impossible demands of him; who would hold Mr Orton responsible for a filthy human sacrifice that took place twenty centuries ago supposedly to take vicarious responsibility for everyone’s sins; and who would monitor Mr Orton’s every thought, awake and asleep, reserving eternal torture as punishment should he fail to make the right propitiations. To wish that on any fellow human is utterly disgusting even to the most elementary morality. Any morally enlightened person must be mightily pleased that no evidence whatsoever exists for God.
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One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
-Sri Lankabhimanya Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS
16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008
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Here is a YouTube video of David Robertson outlining his stance on morality.
Carbonman, this is an interesting comment on the conversation I was involved in last June. First I will own up to being completely outgunned by David Robertson- he is a professional talker and that was my first ever debate.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I found about his debating style is that he throws all sorts of well-rehearsed nonsense at you at high speed, and there is so much of it that it is very hard to pick a single issue to argue against. I guess this is an intentional debating style. It means that there is much to be deconstructed before you can make any headway in the debate and I had neither the skills nor the time to do it.
I guess his approach is very much a preaching style, which is of course his background. In his book 'The Dawkins Letters' (I think), which I read on the way to the radio station that day, he claims that he could have put a much better case for atheism than Dawkins does in 'The God Delusion'. I didn't find an opportunity to get him to expand on this in the programme- I wish I had done.
Paul Orton (a.k.a. Saul)
Paul, thanks for your comment. I take my hat off to you for going on the air with such an unlevel playing field, i.e. two against one. Although Justin Brierley tries to be fair by allocating equal time to each speaker, his own theism is continually thrust to the forefront of the discussion. David Robertson is, as you say, a preacher advertising his personal brand of faith. He has put forward no reasoned argument that morality is anything other than a product of evolved minds. I've just found a YouTube video of him re-stating all the tired old moral arguments, including 'atheism leads to Stalin and Hitler', and ignoring the nub of the issue re. minds empathising with other minds. I'll embed that vid on my blog.
ReplyDeleteCarbonman- I agree with you about Justin's approach, but of course you have to remember that it is a Christian radio station and I think Justin is a little unnerved by the
ReplyDeletestrength of the atheist audience of the programme, so probably feels he needs to bolster the other side a bit. I don't particularly object to this, if this is how they want to do it.
Keep up the good work- I don't know which particular middle eastern country you are in, but I understand why you wouldn't want to publicise you beliefs. I had an interview in the relatively westernised UAE last year, where I didn't manage a two-hour interview without saying something culturally unacceptable. Good luck to you.
Paul, thanks for your comment. Well yes, you're right, the raison d'etre of Premier is to promulgate Christian apologetics, but Unbelievable is only part of the programming and IMHO if they're going to sell the programme on a 'Christian debates non-Christian' theme, they need to aim for visibly (audibly? :) impartial chairmanship.
ReplyDeleteRe. real world locations etc. I'd be more than happy to correspond by email or PM if you're up for it. Send me a PM on rd.net if you want, or a direct message on Twitter.