Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For other entries, see index.
We’ve just concluded our debate on the cosmological argument, which Marshall chose to address first, believing it demonstrates a god probably exists. I’ve closed that debate with my last entry, finding no merit to it.
Dr. Marshall has now asked that I reverse the order and take up my opening case against the existence of God and elaborate on it, to which he will then reply, and eventually have the last word. If we see any need to continue after that, we will reverse order again and Marshall will take up the mantle again.
That the Evidence Points to Atheism (VI)
by Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
I argued there’s no evidence for gods in cosmology or the pleasures of experience; rather, the evidence of the world proves gods highly improbable, particularly in respect to science, fate, morality and history.
Making a single argument: that if a god existed, the world and its history and contents would likely be very different than we observe, whereas what we observe is just as we could have predicted from the absence of gods. Which entails God is improbable, as this is all more likely on his not existing; and no evidence is less so.
I’ll now list many ways this is true from a moral POV. I’ll assume Marshall does not agree an evil, crippled, or indifferent god is likely to exist, and that any being that frequently adheres to the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you”) is correctly designated moral; and any being that doesn’t, immoral. [1]
In every case, the evidence is what we expect on atheism; not what we expect on theism. Theists thus must invent bizarre excuses for these observations; but they present no evidence any of those excuses are probable. Therefore neither is God.
The Argument from Cosmic Indifference
The universe is indifferent to human and animal welfare.
Natural evils not of our making plague all life on earth. From disease and deformities and famines to tornadoes and tsunamis and beasts. No moral person would allow this could they prevent it; moral humans are moral precisely because they try to. God does not. Therefore probably no moral god exists.
Human evils also go unopposed and unpunished by anything other than human effort; and yet all rational moral beings alive agree a system that would more justly prevent and police such crimes would be better for human well-being. That this is therefore what a moral being would produce, entails no moral being likely exists to produce it, other than us.
Therefore there is probably no moral god. [2]
The Argument from Non-Design
The world also looks godless, to our detriment:
- Absent a God, life could arise only by improbable accident and the only place such an improbable accident is likely to be observed is in a vastly old and large universe almost entirely lethal to life; ergo atheism predicts what we see: a vastly old and large universe almost entirely lethal to life; theism does not. [3]
- Absent a God, we could only arise from billions of years of evolution by natural selection plagued by random mistakes; ergo atheism predicts observation, theism does not. [4]
- Absent a God, we’d likely exist only as long-evolved assemblies of originally single-celled organisms, producing cancers; whereas a god would have no need of such ad hoc construction. [5]
- Absent a God, we could think only by having a brain—a long-evolved, fragile machine of extraordinary complexity; but God could just give us souls, immune to harm and impairment. [6]
- Absent a God, our abilities at reasoning would be highly flawed and ad hoc, as in fact they are; any God who wanted us to think well would not do that to us. [7]
All of this is likely on atheism but not on theism without improbable excuses. [8] Even in general the supernatural could substantially improve the goodness of the world, yet there’s no credible evidence of it; which is unexpected if’s there’s a god. [9]
The Argument from Evolved Morality
I argued moral facts exist in all possible universes containing self-aware beings, then argued “the evidence of human morality matches not what theism predicts, but what atheism predicts: its starting abysmal and being slowly improved by humans (not gods), over thousands of years, in the direction that would make their societies better for them.” That’s improbable if God exists but exactly what we’d see if he doesn’t. [10]
The world hasn’t been governed by moral laws, and neither have human societies but for laws humans invented, which all—including in the Old Testament—began dysfunctional, inequitable, ignorant, and cruel, and took enormous spans of failure to revise, and were revised by reason before anyone credited gods with rethinking them. [11]
The Bible endorses the immorality of slavery (even Jesus uses it as a moral exemplar), and says nothing for democracy or human rights or universal suffrage or equality (the New Testament in fact condemns it); nor freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or respect for personal autonomy (all condemned by the Bible). [12]
Moral gods would not allow that; therefore they probably don’t exist.
The Argument from Religious History
A real God would ensure all communications from the divine would be consistently enough the same at all times in history and across all geographical regions, and presciently enough in line with the true facts of the world and God’s values, as to assure us which were real. But atheism predicts these “communications” will be pervasively inconsistent across time and space, and full of factual errors about the world and immoral or harmful directives promoted as good, exactly matching the ignorance of each culture.
Richard Carrier, “The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My First Reply“
The vast confusion and variation in “what gods tell us” from the dawn of human culture to today and across the world proves there are no real gods. Only humans who imagine them.
And all of these claimed revelations align with the ignorance and false beliefs of their authors, thus again demonstrating none came from any real gods. Jesus did not know about germs. Moses did not know about democracy or human rights. Neither knew any correct fact about the world or people or socio-political systems that wasn’t already known. No revelation has therefore ever been real.
This is all improbable, unless no moral god exists. [13]
Conclusion
A god with no interest in helping us is not moral according to any morality any rational person would endorse. No god has ever credibly helped us. No competent revelations. No moral instruction. No well-designed brains. The total and continual indifference of the universe and fate toward human and animal well-being. All prove this. Therefore a moral god is improbable.
It’s also improbable that any god would make the world look exactly like a world with no god in it: vast, ancient, random, void of the supernatural, almost entirely hostile to life, and ruled by a wholly indifferent physics.
Meanwhile, inventing excuses for such behavior does not increase but actually decreases the probability of a god, as there is no evidence any of those excuses are probable, therefore adding them only compounds the improbability of any god at all. [14]
-:-
Such is my case against the existence of Marshall’s god.
Continue now to read Marshall’s reply.
-:-
Endnotes
[1] Just to keep things simple. My actual moral philosophy is a bit more sophisticated and is laid out formally under peer review in Richard Carrier, “Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them)” in The End of Christianity, ed. by John Loftus (2011), pp. 333-64, 420-29. With extensive informal discussion in Sense and Goodness without God (Part V). See also Richard Carrier, “The Real Basis of a Moral World” (12 November 2018).
[2] On both points see Richard Carrier’s Argument from Divine Inaction in the Carrier-Wanchick debate (2006); for more extensive argument: Richard Carrier, Why I Am Not a Christian (2011), pp. 7-27, and, more so, Sense and Goodness without God (2005), Part IV. And note I said “humans and animals” and “all life”: for the extension of this point beyond the misery of only humans, see John Loftus, “The Darwinian Problem of Evil,” in The Christian Delusion (2010), pp. 237-70.
[3] For formal discussion see Richard Carrier, “Neither Life Nor the Universe Appear Intelligently Designed,” in The End of Christianity, ed. by John Loftus (2011), pp. 292-98; cf. pp. 295-96:
99.99999 percent composed of lethal radiation-filled vacuum, and 99.99999 percent of all the material in the universe comprises stars and black holes on which nothing can ever live, and 99.99999 percent of all other material in the universe…is barren…or even outright inhospitable to life.
See also Richard Carrier, “Why Life Must Be Complex” (24 February 2019) and Arguments from Design in Richard Carrier, “Bayesian Counter-Apologetics” (10 January 2017).
[4] See Richard Carrier, “Neither Life Nor the Universe Appear Intelligently Designed,” in The End of Christianity, ed. by John Loftus (2011), pp. 284-89.
[6] See Richard Carrier, Argument from Mind-Brain Dysteleology from the Carrier-Wanchick debate of 2006; and Argument from Consciousness in Richard Carrier, “Bayesian Counter-Apologetics” (10 January 2017).
[7] See Richard Carrier, “Neither Life Nor the Universe Appear Intelligently Designed,” in The End of Christianity, ed. by John Loftus (2011), pp. 298-302; and Argument from Reason in Richard Carrier, “Bayesian Counter-Apologetics” (10 January 2017).
[8] See Richard Carrier’s Basic Argument to Naturalism as the Best Explanation in the Carrier-Wanchick debate (2006).
[9] See Richard Carrier’s Basic Argument for Naturalism in the Carrier-Wanchick debate (2006) and the Argument from Miracles and Argument from Superman in Richard Carrier, “Bayesian Counter-Apologetics” (10 January 2017); with development in Richard Carrier, “The God Impossible” (8 March 2012), “The Argument from Specified Complexity against Supernaturalism” (17 April 2018), and “William Lane Craig’s Duplicitous Denial That Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” (28 February 2019).
[10] See The Moral Argument in Richard Carrier, “Bayesian Counter-Apologetics” (10 January 2017).
[11] See Richard Carrier, “Christians Did Not Invent Charity and Philanthropy” (24 May 2017) and “No, Tom Holland, It Wasn’t Christian Values That Saved the West” (18 April 2019) and, as one example, my Response to McFall on Jesus’ teachings regarding women; and as another example, see the Wikipedia article on The Golden Rule. See also my article (also cited below) on The Real War on Christmas.
[12] See Richard Carrier, “That Christian Nation Nonsense (Gods Bless Our Pagan Nation)” (12 March 2013) as well as The Will of God: 24 Evil Old Testament Verses and “The Real War on Christmas: The Fact That Christmas Is Better Than Christ” (23 December 2016).
[13] See Argument from Religious Experience in Richard Carrier, “Bayesian Counter-Apologetics” (10 January 2017).
[14] For those unaware, this is a fundamental principle of mathematics: for any assumption A added to any hypothesis B, P(A&B) = P(A) x P(B). Ergo the conjunction of A and B will always be less probable than either A or B. For instance, an assumption A that is only so far as we know 50% likely to be true will reduce the probability of hypothesis B by 50%. Thus adding excuses (A) always reduces the probability of the excused hypothesis (B). Not realizing this is called the conjunction fallacy. This is not to be confused with Alvin Plantinga’s so-called “Problem of Diminishing Probabilities,” in which Plantinga confused accumulating assumptions with the effect of accumulating evidence. The latter conjunction always increases the probability of a hypothesis if each individual addition does, e.g. if for each A it is the case that P(A|B) > P(A|~B), then for every added A, P(B|A) increases. This is the difference between P(B|A), the probability of B given A (where A, being evidence, is already established to be highly probable), and P(A&B), the probability of the mere conjunction of A and B (where neither A nor B is “evidence” but conjecture). See The Cost of Making Excuses in Richard Carrier, “Bayesian Counter-Apologetics” (10 January 2017) and Proving History (2012), index, “gerrymandering”.
[Note there is one exception to the conjunction fallacy: when B is logically entailed by A, i.e. it is logically impossible for there to be an A without B, then the probability of their conjunction is the same as their independent probability (though also not higher). But to show that would require proving B is logically entailed by A; merely conjecturing it is does not suffice.]
I am persuaded there is no such thing as a soul because of things like the implications of traumatic brain injury that leaves someone in a vegetative state.
A vegetative state is a chronic condition that preserves the ability to maintain BP, respiration, and cardiac function, but not cognitive function. Hypothalamic and medullary brain stem functions remain intact to support cardiorespiratory and autonomic functions and are sufficient for survival if medical and nursing care is adequate. The cortex is severely damaged (eliminating cognitive function), but the reticular activating system (RAS) remains functional (making wakefulness possible). Midbrain or pontine reflexes may or may not be present. Patients have no awareness of self and interact with the environment only via reflexes.
If all of what we call “The Self” can be made to disappear by injuring the brain, what would be left over that belongs to the soul?
Agreed. Throughout the entire debate I have had problems with an “eternal dis-embodied mind.” The only minds I know about are connected to human bodies. For those interested in a critical analysis read Rudolf Carnap’s article “The Elimination of Metaphysics Through a Logical Analysis of Language” or similar title.
Doesn’t presenting evidence against gods perpetuate the false stereotype that atheism is a positive claim rather than simply “not theism”?
I would say if secularism isn’t evidence based against God, then why bother holding it?
For instance, if God is as powerful and wise as people claim, then shouldn’t we hold him to an even higher standard of responsibility/accountability than we do people? In fact, we don’t even hold God to the same legal standards that we do people.
Consider the suffering caused by earthquakes and hurricanes, two phenomena the earth could have been created without. In United States law, depraved-heart murder, also known as depraved-indifference murder, is a type of murder where an individual acts with a “depraved indifference” to human life and where such act results in a death, despite that individual not explicitly intending to kill. In a depraved-heart murder, defendants commit an act even though they know their act runs an unusually high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to a person. If the risk of death or bodily harm is great enough, ignoring it demonstrates a “depraved indifference” to human life and the resulting death is considered to have been committed with malice aforethought. In some states, depraved-heart killings constitute second-degree murder, while in others, the act would be charged with varying degrees of manslaughter.
If no death results, such an act would generally constitute reckless endangerment (sometimes known as “culpable negligence”) and possibly other crimes, such as assault.
Why would we not hold God up to the same standards of accountability that we would a human? Consider the legal ramifications if a person built a machine that could approximate an earthquake and used it to level New York …
That pretty much nails it, IMO.
I alluded the same point in my opening: “God has fewer limitations than we do in these regards; therefore is less likely than we are to fail in these duties.”
It’s both.
Hi. I was clicking through some endnote links, first link in 13, “Argument from Religious Experience” links to Apple.com, lol.
Thank you. There were a few cases of that, where my software was deleting the URLs. I’ve fixed them all now.
As I understand it, some theology supposes that God did not create the universe as a benevolent garden for life, but rather as a cruel testing ground to weed out the non-hackers who don’t pack the gear for eternal life.
Mainstream Christian theology supposes that God created the Garden of Eden with no pain, suffering, or death. All of that was brought on by the fall of man (original sin) and what we have now was not part of God’s original plan. There are many problems with that (such as eternal suffering for one sin) but here are a couple of other problems that have occurred to me.
If it was never Gods plan for us to me mortal and live in a World with sickness and physical hard, them why are our bodies equipped and prepared to deal with an environment and situations that threaten our survival (immune system, blood clotting, etc.)
There would be no reason to build all of that into the “design” of man if God’s plan was for him spend all of his days as a immortal being in the harmless Garden of Eden.
Also it is said (or strongly implied) that if Adam and Eve had obeyed God on that fateful day of temptation then the course for man would’ve have been different.
But nowhere in Genesis does it say that would be Satan’s one and only chance to tempt Adam and Eve.
So even if they resisted that one time they possibly could’ve failed the next time. All we know is that they fell to temptation the first time that they were tempted.
In retrospect doesn’t the fact that they gave into temptation (demonstrating that they were capable of doing so) ensure us that they would’ve eventually done so? We are to believe that SINCE THEN all man is born with a sinful nature and ASSURED to sin (at some point in our lives). But here you have Adam and Eve that gave into sin on their first temptation. And yet we are to believe that they were not born with a sinful nature as well? What evidence so we have that they were any less sinful (or morally capable) then any of the “fallen mankind” that followed them?
Couldn’t one make a strong argument that anyone that is born (or created) with free will and is less than morally perfect is doomed to sin? We know from their actions (from FIRST TEMPTATION no less) that that Adam and Even were not morally perfect.
How can someone then make a case that the story of Adam and Eve could’ve turned out any other way?
And if it could not have turned out any other way then how are we to believe that a God (who set this all up to start with) could’ve expected anything different from mankind (in the Garden of Eden and thereafter).
Note Genesis 3:16. Eve’s pain would now be multiplied. No well educated Christian believes there would be NO pain or suffering. Reading the rest of your comment sounds like you are filled with televangeism theology. Irregardless, the errors in biblical studies by theists or atheists can’t make God not exist.
Also, notice that when they sinned they continued to live. Death, in scripture, is often talking about separation or spiritual death. In the New Testament, such as in I Cor 15:6, asleep actually means dead. People in different cultures using different languages and especially thousands of years ago expressed things differently than we do today. Just ask anyone from another country.
I’m not trying to make the Bible fit my wishes. I just know a thing or two about foreign languages and biblical hermeneutics.
Lastly, I would suggest the Christian God expected everything to turn out exactly as it turned out. It’s the Christian claim that God providentially creates and orders history with human free choices considered, including Adam and Eve’s. Their fall taught them how to be sorry and to appreciate compassion, forgiveness and mercy. This shows God’s smartness contrary to stupidly.
but the surpunt is cunning – which implies sin olredy ixists in the gardun. ‘mainstream christianity’ hasn’t got an ansr as tu the orijin’v sin – since a purfict god can’t create anything actually or potentially impurfict.
ex perfecto, perfect fit
yet jesus only kicks them all out when adam and eve et from the tree.
Morovr Jesus setl’d the det by his deth.
logically evrywun shud be back in Eden – there can be no further claim on us anymor.
no mor deth, illness, apoptosis, old age, being def, dum or wering glassis. the det has been paid, the transaction is cumplete, the till has rung.
It seems Adam’s actions are mor powerful in getting us evictid than the incarnat god man jesus’ in getting us re-housed.
Which of course would convict God of stupidity. Because he is supposed to know everything—ergo he has no need of tests. And God designed everything—ergo anything created that fails his tests is his failure, not theirs.
Of course one can sooner argue from this that God exists—and designed the world specifically to only send atheists to heaven. The test, in other words, is for rationality. But since that is also stupid and yet more intelligent than the other thing, the other thing is stupider still, a fortiori.
On a related note even if we suppose that a God does exist one could argue that we are not the creator’s pet after all. Perhaps he has no more regard for us than we do for much lesser creatures (e.g. mosquitoes and cockroaches). It could be that this is not an all knowing God after all and he has setup our World as an experiment (the same way that we do with lab rats) and either doesn’t intervene at all or only intervenes for purposes that have nothing to do with concern for our actual well being. Or maybe we are some cruel version of the Truman Show and we are unknowingly just here for his entertainment. Or perhaps we are just one of billions of other bastard universes that this God has fathered and since moved on and forgotten about.
My point in saying all of this is that even is we consider the possibility that a God exists if certainly shouldn’t assume that it has any one of the theological Gods that mankind has contrived. And indeed it would be much easier to reconcile the existence of any one of types of Gods I described with our known reality and evidence. Far fewer lame excuses would have to be made to explain such a God’s behavior (action or inaction). We could just say “It must be part of the experiment”, or “He must find that entertaining”, or “He simply doesn’t care about us and our little bastard universe”.
It’s true far fewer excuses are needed then. But still far more excuses are needed than just ditching the god construct altogether. Occham’s Razor (in conjunction with observed evidence) eliminates even evil, indifferent, crippled, and dead gods from likely existence. But I shall assume Marshall does not intend to defend such gods.
But why the assumption that God would only ever create a perfect universe? Perhaps he enjoys watching death and suffering. This wouldn’t make him stupid, just sadistic.
Dr. Carrier was assuming, for the sake of argument, that Dr. Marshall is not positing an “evil, crippled, or indifferent god.”
I’ve taken it for granted in the lengthy and technical side-discussion of the Kalam that the God Dr. Marshall believes in is not some Deist watchmaker, or some Aristotelian Unmoved Mover. I sort of took it for granted that Dr. Marshall was further convinced that the God he’s arguind for made moral proclamations, or from whom the existence of some objective moral standard was directly dependent and not an incidental byproduct of creation itself.
I’ve always considered it an interesting question, for the sake of argument in these kinds of moral arguments, to assume a bland and featureless Deistic god and ask the person making the moral argument to then persuade me that objective moral values existed. It’s a good, illustrative point that you can argue for the existence of god without accepting objective moral values, and you can argue for the existence of objective moral values without accepting a god. It forces the other person in the discussion to specify that they are, in fact, advocating for a specific type of god under a specific definition of objective moral values. Which they may or may not be trying to bootstrap into the conversation without proof.
Benjamin C. what Dr. Marshall is arguing is clearly wrong. I’m not trained in philosophy, but rather in industrial trades…LOL. However it seems to me that a divine moral standard could fit with the scenario
I have put forth.
Suppose God is so far advanced from us that he looks on us as mere insects, not deserving of any compassion. Now suppose that Earth is a proving ground for souls, where morality in the face of all sorts of horrors will buy you a ticket to the afterlife where your spiritual journey will begin on the ground floor.
Hence not moral.
But yes, if a god were a sociopath, and thus knew he had no need of testing anyone but did it anyway just because he enjoys suffering, that would be compatible with existing evidence—this is called the Argument from Evil Gods and has a distinguished publication history in philosophy, e.g. Michael Martin and Stephen Law have both published versions. Many more exist. Law’s version now has a video illustration.
However, of course, “compatible” still does not equal “probable.” There actually are still incongruities between an evil god and observation—in fact exactly the same ones as for a good god, only conversely. An evil god’s evil meddling and presence would be rampant in observation (many a scifi and fantasy novel has explored this point). One has to finely tune an evil god to also get him to be a hidden god who goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure the world operates exactly like a godless world that was never designed for any purpose, not even evil. In effect, this is a Cartesian Demon. And the same reasons all Cartesian Demons are improbable on existing evidence, so are Evil Gods. It’s just that evil gods are still far more compatible with the evidence than good ones.
Dr Carrier, you and Dr Marshall opened arguing one argument, the KCA. Now you are opening with four arguments, the argument from; cosmic indifference, non-design, evolved morality and religious history. Don’t you think the discussion would be less confusing if you picked one of those areas at a time? This seems to be unfair to Dr Marshall. Greg Koukl calls this the Steam Roller Tactic where you volley a mountain of objections to respond to that 1100 words would be inadequate for a clear and fair response. If you respond that these arguments are all under the heading of morality then I’d suggest, due to the complexity and breadth of the subject, that the responses be increased to maybe 3000 words. Otherwise the responses would be lacking the info necessary for complete clarity.
It’s all one argument: the Argument from Evil, namely, all the listed evidence contradicts a moral God. More specifically, all this stuff is probable on atheism, improbable on moral theism. Ergo moral theism is less probable than atheism.
Note I left out here all instances of evidence incompatible with God that did not inform his moral character. Hence this is just a list of evidence for a single argument. Categorized.
If I can do that in 1100 words, he can respond in 1100 words. Or he can choose to select items and do them one at a time. But until he dispatches all this evidence of God’s immorality, he must reject the moral God hypothesis.
Q.E.D.
Proposed tithing solution:
Throw your money way up in the air, and whatever God wants, he gets to keep. Whatever falls down is yours to keep.
Here’s another solution. Christians should study the scripture a little closer. The tithe was intended for the Jews that raised cattle and grew crops, to give a tenth to support the Levitical priests. No one else was required to give this tithe and and especially Christians in the New Testament era. Christians were told by Paul to give out of their abundance to support missions, to those in need but no percentage is noted. There are unfortunately many greedy pastors out there and others that just don’t know any better. Irregardless, their error doesn’t make Christianity false or God not exist. We can’t fault a worldview because of the errors of its adherents. I don’t reject atheism because many atheists are conflicted in their views.
“Christians should study the scripture a little closer.”
If they did they would find passages in their Bible that you never hear on Sunday morning. Just a few examples:
“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.”
Exodus 21: 7-8
“Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.” (1 Peter 2:18)
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. Numbers 31:17-18
Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 2 Kings 2:23-25 NIV
Worshiping Other Gods:
6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death.
“If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.” – Deuteronomy 22:20-21
OU812INVU, you’re right. The scripture faithfully records the work system which was already established in the society by people (not God) that inflicted cruelty on those that sold themselves into the current work system. Notice how the laws would actually improve their lives.
Thankfully our church looks as verses such as you listed since many people try to use these to impune God’s character. When you tease out what’s actually going on, such as those sweet innocent children being attacked by bears, ha. Think about it, “42” were attacked? They were actually a mob of street thugs out causing trouble on a messenger of the creator. There’s actually a pretty good book by Paul Copan called “Is God a Moral Monster” that gives a bit of insight on OT difficulties. People reading scripture back in the past wouldn’t have the difficulty that people today have reading it because they understood the context, language usage and the times much better. Today we have to slow down when we read OT passages that at first glance raise our eyebrows.
You listed many common objections which deserve quite a bit of forum space each to clarify. If there is one in particular that you can’t reason through, let me know and I’d be glad to help.
I’ve never understood this weak excuse for god “the work system which was already established in the society by people (not God) that inflicted cruelty on those that sold themselves into the current work system”. We’re talking about GOD. He isn’t limited by the imagination of bronze age thinking. He was writing the instruction manual for people and the best he could do was try and tweak it so that it wasn’t quite as terrible as XYZ group over there? (which can be argued it wasn’t any better btw) There was nothing stopping him from commanding things that are ACTUALLY moral. And all these rules weren’t JUST for people who sold themselves. It was for people captured in war and any children the slaves might have as well. Or for family members who were actually sold and had no say in the matter. This terribly weak excuse does nothing but make god look he’s inept at best and a monster at worst.
Dr Carrier, you start out by saying natural evils make God probably not exist (or improbable). Your support for this is by comparing what moral humans would attempt to prevent vs. what God fails to do. You call what theists do “invent bizarre excuses” and now you are doing the same thing. Your objections are just excuses for naturalism being the cause of the universe. Of course you and I would try to prevent natural disasters. We aren’t preparing people for eternity. You say (generally) if God existed we would/should expect X. This is called abductive reasoning/logic which can be quite helpful to us but we must be aware of its weakness. One can make the argument hinge on their relative opinion/preferences.
I find the universe and all its natural hostilities/disasters precisely what we’d expect to find if theism was true. It provides an environment for us to learn and understand character attributes like care, concern, compassion etc. Here in this universe we learn “how” to appreciate wonderful provisions, gifts, meaningful rewards, beauty, eternity w/out evil pain and suffering, and yes, even God Himself w/ all His attributes of love, compassion, patience, forgiveness, mercy, etc. One problem the atheists have is learning patience. They want God to end the EPS now. A hellish eternity would be living that eternity never knowing how to appreciate how wonderful that eternity is. So where is the evidence for all that I said. 1. The same abductive logic you use. 2. The biblical claims of those in the NT who were willing to suffer horribly and even die for the claims they made. People don’t easily suffer horribly and die for a “known made up lie/religion. 3. Much more but I won’t go into here. Trying not to filibuster.
My question to you is, if you was God how would you teach me how to appreciate and not take for granted, for eternity, your wonderful provisions, gifts, meaning rewards, beauty, an eternity w/o EPS and more? How would I get to know you and your capacity for compassion, patience, forgiveness, mercy and so on? How could I ever learn how to really have a real compassionate, caring, concerned, patient etc love for my eternal family members? It seems to me that relationships w/the Creator and other family members would be shallow, w/no substance. You complain we are designed w/ imperfect bodies and brains. How would you teach me to appreciate a perfect body that doesn’t suffer the 2nd law of thermodynamics (law of decay)? Oh, so much to ask you to consider. This is exactly the perfect universe I would expect from a perfectly wise and perfectly moral Creator. What would be immoral is to rob me of any opportunity to learn “appreciation”.
It’s the other way around. The invented excuses for God for which there is no evidence are “just excuses for god being the cause of the universe.” We’re the ones not using excuses.
That’s the difference between atheists and theists. We take the evidence as it is. Theists invent evidence that doesn’t exist to make the reality differ from what it plainly appears.
No. It’s statistically empirical: we have a database of millions of moral agents spanning thousands of years; we have very good data on how they behave. When someone starts behaving exactly contrary to that well-established trend, we thus know we have very strong empirical evidence they are immoral.
That is in fact how our entire system of criminal jurisprudence and community character assessment operates. If we got to invent any excuses we wanted to excuse anyone’s immoral behavior as moral, we could never identify bad people or criminals, and our justice systems and communities would collapse into chaos at the hands of predators, swindlers, and thieves.
Once you stop making excuses, it’s no longer a mystery how moral people behave.
That’s horrific.
It’s like saying I get to murder and cripple and torture and starve and drown anyone I want, as long as it lets people “understand character” and other baloney like that.
People don’t need to be murdered and crippled and tortured and starved and drowned to recognize character and virtue.
Anyone who thinks they do is a moral monster. Or defending one.
I’d ask you to enjoy life and human companionship and knowledge and work through relationships and effort and giving. And I would create an environment that didn’t impair your ability to do that.
I wouldn’t murder, rape, torture, maim, cripple, starve, or drown you or ever infect you with a disease or damage your brain to impair your judgment or any other horrible thing. Because you don’t need to endure any such nonsense to enjoy life and human companionship and knowledge and work.
I certainly wouldn’t murder, rape, torture, maim, cripple, starve, drown or disease millions of other people so you can be happy. Because that would be even more useless to that end. And even more vile.
The same way the Swedes and Finns and Japanese do: by living in a good society with minimal crime, disaster, and disease.
The Somalians and Syrians and Hondurans are not “more wise” and “more realized” than Swedes and Finns and Japanese because they are burdened with more horrific environments. To the contrary their ability to access a good life is substantially impaired by their wretched environment.
There is a reason safe, quiet worlds generate less poverty and crime: wretched worlds do not make people better; they make them worse. Both outright (generating a larger criminal class) and by proxy (trapping more people in inescapable pits of poverty and disability).
This is an empirical fact. And I base my beliefs on empirical facts.
Empirically false. Swedes and Finns and Japanese are not less loving and more shallow than Americans. Uhem. Dude. It’s the opposite. Americans are far more selfish and shallow, generate far more poverty and crime, more racism and sexism.
You don’t need to “appreciate” a body without disease and a brain that always functions correctly. You just need to use them. They are tools that allow you to obtain a happy life. Impair the tools, and you impair access to a happy life. Not the other way around.
It is appalling and horrifying if you need people to be killed and diseased and crippled so you can “appreciate” not being killed or diseased or crippled. That’s immoral as fuck.
Dr Carrier, that was a nice end run around my questions and points. Reading your reply I haven’t learned anything on how YOU would teach me “to appreciate” those human qualities that we learn in this universe.
True, us killing people to learn to appreciate freedom from suffering is horrifying and appalling. That’s why we’re commanded to not murder. But death and disease, from the point of view of the atheists, would also seem appalling and horrifying because to them that’s the end. If theism is true then our lives are but a grain of sand on an endless beach.
I’m right about the abductive logic and its weakness. Dr Carrier says “if God existed I would expect the universe to be X”. Dr Olson says ” if God existed I would expect the universe to be X”. With the 2 mutually exclusive conclusions the abductive reasoning fails in at least 1 instance (maybe both). Invoking the database of good human moral achievements is a category error. It doesn’t speak to the plans and objectives of the Creator.
I don’t get what you’re talking about when you mention Swedes, Finn, Japanese after you highlighted my point about relationships w/ the Creator and other family members. I’m talking about all human beings in general, not just people from select countries.
If a perfect body is eventually given to us by the Creator then I would love to show some “actual” appreciation. Maybe you wouldn’t.
I guess what I recognize as evidence for a Creator of the universe and life will not be recognized by you as any more than excuses. So be it. I think I’m smart enough to recognize bad evidence. Well if I thought it was bad evidence then I’d be trying my best to be a hedonist in the time I have left.
Finally for your emotional plea at the end of your reply to me, how would I appreciate my life and show my appreciation for that life if I never knew or could even comprehend death? HOW? You show the emotional outburst but you don’t tell me HOW. You like to give your opinion on many other things, why not this? (This is a sincere request)
Then you didn’t read what I wrote. Because I just told you.
Maybe you don’t know how teaching works. Or are a terrible student.
Then you aren’t understanding the point I just made. That better societies can exist without causing the negative effects you allege refutes your claim that improved environments will cause those negative effects.
You simply made a false claim about the world. And evidence demonstrates this.
Um…now you just contradicted yourself. You said you’d struggle to appreciate a diseaseless, unimpaired body as the reason God must give you a diseased, impaired body. And now you say you’d appreciate receiving a diseaseless, unimpaired body.
Which is it?
If it’s what you now assert, then you’ve just proved my point: we’d appreciate such bodies if we had them now. So why don’t we?
Because life is inherently valuable and appreciable.
It is not valuable and appreciable because of death. Death actually reduces how much it can be appreciated. It does not increase it.
That’s why it is false to claim people have to be brutally murdered for you to appreciate your own life.
And any worldview that causes you to believe people do have to be brutally murdered for you to appreciate your own life, has made you into a moral monster. You should re-think what this has done to you as a person. And join the rest of us, who find that thinking morally abhorrent. We don’t need anyone to be murdered to appreciate our own lives. You need to ask yourself why you do. And why we don’t.
Alif, if God can’t create anything capable of sin then how is it that you, me, Dr Carrier and Dr Marshall exist? You just shot yourself in the foot. Also, why do you think it’s important for Christians to know when the first sin was committed. And, who taught you Christian theology. The debt is paid for all those who would embrace the offer for clemency. You have a choice to reject that clemency. That same free will is what causes sin. If you’re not sorry for your sins why should your debt be paid? I notice you say a lot of things about Christianity that I and my Christian acquaintances don’t believe. It seems you’ve received a twisted teaching. If God created you capable of sin, well, that’s perfect because it gives you an opportunity to choose Him, reject the sins and appreciate Him for His love, mercy and forgiveness where you would have never known that about Him if you could never sin and do evil.
Dr Carrier, just reread your reply. I saw no instruction that would enlighten me as to how to appreciate my painless existence w/o the atrocities of pain and suffering or death if I never saw or experienced it. I’d need some kind of reference. You abhor those things (and so do I) only because you HAVE seen them. When I read your responses to my comments/questions it seems as though you think that I think atrocities/suffering is a wonderful thing. I’m sickened by it as much as you. The difference is that I can see a resulting greater good where you refuse to see it.
Of course I know how teaching works. Reference and repetition are 2 of its most important tools. Am I a good student? I could have ώρες συνομιλίες μαζί σου και στα δύο κοίνε και μοδέρνο ελληνικά. Could you?
Where did I say anything about “better societies”, “negative effects”, improved environments” or any claim about the world? I think you’re thinking of another’s conversation.
Next, I never said “I’d struggle to appreciate” a perfect body if that’s the only one I ever knew. I’d just never have a reference to actually have a meaningful appreciation for that body. The issue is not the struggle, it’s the knowledge. You say “we’d appreciate such bodies if we had them now”. Of course, that’s because you already have the “knowledge” of sub-perfect bodies.
Finally, those brutal murders you mention, suffering, disease and death do teach me to appreciate life and its inherent value. I confess that if I never had any concept of what those horrible things were I’d be without care, compassion and concern for you and others. It’s an intellectual fact being dealt with by emotional people. It’s tough but we need to be honest with ourselves about it.
I’ll end the back and forth on this here unless you are curious of what my reply would be. Take the last word. Thank you for the conversation.
Wow.
How to appreciate life without murdering or torturing anyone:
Enjoy life and human companionship and knowledge and work through relationships and effort and giving.
What part of that instruction do you not understand?
And how is it that you need actual mass murder to understand murder? Are you incapable of comprehending fiction because imagined things that don’t exist are incomprehensible to you? Do you honestly need an actual holocaust before you can understand what happened in Avengers: Infinity War?
Seriously?
That you believe you need mass murder to appreciate life is sick and twisted. And I hope someday you wake up and abandon your horrific worldview, and learn the real reason we appreciate life. Without any need of mass murder.
Dr Carrier, since you asked me questions, I’ll reply.
Do you remember being a child playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians? We felt no guilt because there was no suffering or death (actual). Today kids play video games w/ horrible death but don’t connect how horrific that death is.
You say “How to appreciate life w/o murdering or torturing anyone: Enjoy life and human companionship and knowledge and work through relationships and giving. What part of that instruction do you not understand?”
A few problems there. When we were kids playing those games we WERE having fun but not appreciating life. We’d often get angry when mom or dad called us into the house because the FUN was being interrupted. I think you’re not making the distinction between “appreciate life” and “enjoy life”. “Enjoy life” should be more accurately stated “enjoy fun”.There was nothing in your above instructions that informed me of the actual atrocities of evil pain and suffering. You ask me if I’m incapable of comprehending fiction. No, I can imagine a world with profusely more evil, pain and suffering and with only brief moments of relief and pleasure than this world offers. And that’s only because I’ve been exposed to actual atrocities as I grew up in this world. I’m so delighted we’re not living in that world. This world seems to have the necessary balance. We love, enjoy and appreciate one side of the balance and are sickened and horrified by what we see and learn from the other side.
I am delighted to know that you, at least, abhor the same mass murders and suffering that I do and would hope that you would join me and the rest of the world in trying to minimize it. That would be an objective moral duty. I would have never been able to dream up the Holocaust if I was never introduced to death. I would still have that childlike mind, spoiled, seeking fulfillment in fun.
Mine is not a “sick and twisted” worldview. It’s a thoughtful and reasoned examination of human behavior and development. Yours, however? Well, I’ll just politely say it’s different.
My advice here, don’t be a victim in any mass murder with a broken relationship with the Creator.
I don’t know about you, but I had a really good idea of what death was and how horrible by the time I was six, when I saw people die in the film Star Wars. I subsequently engaged in lots of safe fantasy that involved death (imagination, boardgames, role playing games, films and novels) and still understood the severity and horror of the real thing.
If you did not, this may explain why you still think it’s okay to have mass murder just so you can be happy.
Me, the very idea that you think that makes my skin crawl.
Dr. Carrier, I appreciate your last comment. I sensed your sincerety in your words. One little adjustment to be clear. You said towards the end that I “have to have mass murder just so I can be happy”. That’s still off the mark. Good times and relationships make me happy. The mass murders compels me to appreciate our lives. (In fact all murders and death). That little distinction has grown very clear to me over the years. I’ve just lacked experience getting my views understood clearly by others. I’m certainly not a public speaker or author. I’m now off this subject and moving on. Ask Dr Marshall his view as to why God hasn’t yet intervened in human caused atrocities. Enjoying your debate!
You either need mass murder to be happy or you do not. If you do, then you are as evil as your God. Because the definition of a good person is someone who doesn’t need that to be happy. Whereas if you do not need that, then God is evil…or does not exist. QED.