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 the rest, our index.
We are now discussing what I call the Argument from Indifference against the existence of God. Marshall just answered my third defense of that. I shall here respond to his latest answer. He shall then close this argument with a final reply and we will take up a new one.
That the Evidence Points to Atheism (IX)
by Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
Dr. Marshall admits only evidence more likely on God than on atheism can be evidence for God. He has yet to present us with any.
The Trivial
Marshall gives no reason why evolved aesthetic responses would be merely “bare” and not often “staggering.” Whereas all the science I reference supports the latter. No evidence here for God.
Marshall really did claim there’s “at least some evidence on both sides” was supported by “most of the world, and many great minds, believe or have believed in God” but not gremlins; missing that most false beliefs are not validly based on evidence, so what most people believe is not evidence there actually is evidence. As gremlins illustrate because people lack traditional, emotional, and other false reasons to believe in them.
The Bible Disproves Marshall’s God
Marshall falsely claims it’s “unreasonable” for God to correctly tell us his moral expectations and falsely claims God actually did because we’ve always known correct moral facts. A contradiction; and empirically false. Marshall’s God openly endorses deception. [1] And the OT and NT are full of unkindness and unreasonableness, spoken or never corrected by God. [2] The opposite of what Marshall claims God “did.” And opposite what a moral God would do.
Marshall continues his Black or White Fallacy here. As when I mentioned the markers of greater moral conscience in Denmark compared to America, Marshall called it a “heavy police state.” Actually, it’s less oppressively policed than America; yet more effectively polices crime. While Denmark’s citizens exhibit far more compassion in the organization of their society than Americans. So there’s no evidence the Danish are less moral. Ergo better policing doesn’t increase depravity. Rather, increased depravity correlates with more poorly policed societies.
Marshall cannot imagine anything between “no policing whatever” and “oppressive police state.” Moral people know good policing is neither; because we’ve created it (within means). A good God would police us wisely and well, not poorly or oppressively. Although if he policed us oppressively we’d at least know he existed; but he polices us not at all, evincing he doesn’t exist.
Likewise Marshall acts like God can only have told us nothing or given us a massive encyclopedia of moral minutiae; when actually, moral persons know a short guidebook, briefer even than the Bible, delivered and endorsed everywhere from day one, is what all moral persons would ensure everyone had if they could. God can. Ergo God cannot be moral.
It’s modus tollens: (1) if God existed, the Bible wouldn’t contain the immoral things it does; but it does; ergo God doesn’t exist; (2) if God existed, the Bible would say different things than it does; it doesn’t; ergo God doesn’t exist.
Natural Evil Disproves Marshall’s God
Dr. Marshall thinks hundreds of millions years of vertebrate suffering is “less” than a mere hundred thousand years of human misbehavior—by illogically citing unestablished science suggesting invertebrates don’t suffer. [3] Marshall also thinks I only counted deaths. I said “maimed, disabled, tormented, and murdered”; “killed, ruined, or maimed,” counting everything disabling and tormenting people, including our badly designed brains and bodies. [4]
The “miseries inflicted by human avarice, pride, jealousy, infidelity, meanness” haven’t been greater than inflicted by diseases, disabilities, and material ruin by natural causes. In no human society have humans murdered half their children; yet for a hundred thousand years God’s world did. Rare is the human society that destroyed entire regions by flood or starved entire societies by famine or crippled masses of people with disease; yet for a hundred thousand years, in God’s world this was routine.
When we add all suffering caused by nature, including all suffering from our badly designed brains, there’s no contest with immorality. And even if there were, it’s irrelevant. “I ruined fewer lives than you, therefore I’m moral” is invalid.
Modus tollens: no moral person would make a world like that; yet so it is; ergo no moral God exists.
Moral Evil Disproves Marshall’s God
Marshall asks which I’d remove if I had to choose, natural or moral evil; an invalid choice: God can diminish both. But if forced we’d choose to correct human irrationality because it’s more instrumental: rational humans can better overcome natural evils. Just as we’ve done—with no divine help. That’s why half our kids don’t die now, only minute percentages; why we’re less ravaged by floods, famines, disease. Etcetera. We did what God chose not to: fixed the world. Within our limits.
We wouldn’t have had to if we had divine friends.
We also made ourselves better—against all reputed advice from God and all poor neural design hindering it. Modern morals, from women’s equality to valuing personal autonomy (and thus abhorring slavery) and respecting freedom of thought, speech, and religion, are all contrary to the Bible. Nor in any divine revelation. Humans invented them. [5]
Modus tollens. This would not be how it went were there a moral God. Yet it is. Ergo there’s no moral God.
Many communities free of serious evil abound in “sympathy, care, and compassion,” so serious evils aren’t needed. If a moral God existed, there wouldn’t be sociopaths (causing the worst moral evils). If a moral God existed, we’d all have better reason and parenting; better mechanisms for reforming the unvirtuous; fewer innocents convicted, fewer criminals escaped, fewer harms unrepaired. Because moral people help those in need.
Modus tollens. God would be helping us, because all moral persons would. He isn’t. Ergo he can’t be moral.
You cannot say “God would do too much,” because he’d do exactly as much as was good; as with all moral action, the options are not “nothing” or “too much.”
Excuses Disprove Marshall’s God
Marshall excuses God’s millions of years of animal torment by claiming God sociopathically wanted to replicate our evils (for millions of years beforehand?) merely to “reflect” them, which is precisely what no moral person would ever do. No moral maker would contemplate such a depraved deed (hence that Marshall thinks animal horrors are justified by “grandeur and fascination” is disturbing). It’s the opposite of what they’d do, which is arrange the animal kingdom as a model for moral society, not an immoral one.
Marshall claims natural evils are punishment. Which evidence disproves—they existed eons before humans, and punish humans completely indiscriminately; innocent or not; no cause or proportionality. Hence we know Marshall’s God doesn’t exist. Nature abuses us randomly. Not intelligently. Certainly not morally or justly.
Marshall asks how to punish correctly. Nations provide examples. [6] God could always have done as much; but being God, could do even better.
Conclusion
All this makes Marshall’s God unlikely; while inventing unevidenced excuses for any of it makes God less probable, not more. [7]
-:-
Such is my latest response to Marshall.
Continue now to read Marshall’s closing answer.
-:-
Endnotes
[1] See, for example, Mark 4:9-12 and 2 Thessalonians 2:11; 1 Kings 22:22-23; etc.
[2] From Richard Carrier, “My Eighth Reply” (10 June 2019):
I’ve referenced many examples. Including God’s vile command that we murder anyone who exercises their freedom of speech, religion, or sexual autonomy (Deuteronomy 12:1-13:16, Leviticus 24:11-16, Numbers 15:32-36; Deuteronomy 22:13-30, Leviticus 20:13), the Lord’s recommendation to mutilate yourself for having disapproved thoughts (Matthew 18:8-9), and God’s failure to correct the New Testament commandment to subjugate women (1 Timothy 2:11-15). And more.
Citing, again, also Richard Carrier, The Will of God: 24 Evil Old Testament Verses and “That Christian Nation Nonsense (Gods Bless Our Pagan Nation)” (12 March 2013) as well as “The Real War on Christmas: The Fact That Christmas Is Better Than Christ” (23 December 2016).
[3] Marshall cited Brian Key and Deborah Brown, “Designing Brains for Pain: Human to Mollusk,” Frontiers in Physiology 9 (2 August 2018). But in the very next issue the certainty of such conclusions was challenged by Edgar Walters in “Nociceptive Biology of Molluscs and Arthropods: Evolutionary Clues About Functions and Mechanisms Potentially Related to Pain” Ibid. (3 August 2018).
[4] Quoting my Third Defense of the AFI (emphasis added); and see my Argument from Cosmic Indifference and my Argument from Non-Design in my First Defense of the Argument from Indifference.
[5] See my Argument from Evolved Morality in my First Defense of the Argument from Indifference.
[6] Review, for example, the punishment systems in Sweden and Norway. And of course Denmark.
[7] See the Conclusion of my First Defense of the AFI.
It’s rather disconcerting how quickly an educated theologian like Dr. Marshall has gone from scientifically based (even if ultimately incorrect) premises to a fundamentalist defense of immorality.
It’s not really a step at all between “God punishes human wickedness with natural disasters” (because otherwise the bible is wrong) and “homosexuals should be executed” (because otherwise the bible is wrong).
I think I just heard the mic hit the floor.
I still think we’d choose to end natural evils, given that our current state of rationality already allows us to self-correct; sans natural evils, we have reduced the set of things to which we need to apply our rationality, and we should be more successful; moral evils are things that are within our control as individuals, and many are inspired by the natural evils that are now gone (which is one reason why I feel the dichotomy of natural/moral is a false one).
I wonder if Dr Marshall could construct a rationale for a belief in this dichotomy that doesn’t rely on the dogma of ‘original sin’?
I love this argument that policing is harmful. Not only does this essentially require Marshall to act like a childishly extremist anarchist (until it is then convenient to have a dictatorial ethic), but it rests on a key assumption: humans can’t police properly therefore God can’t.
What?
Just like fine tuning, this argument is hosed by omnipotence. Whatever factors in theory might make policing counterproductive are a result almost by definition of our non-omnipotence. We want policing to make societies safer and less depraved. Sometimes it has the opposite effect. That means a gap between goals and abilities. But an omnipotent God can’t have such a gap. Even a vastly powerful and knowledgeable God would have methods of enforcement beyond our comprehension let alone access.
When your juryrigged model has to be juryrigged contradictorily, it is bankrupt.
That is superbly well put.
I still can’t get over how Marshall just assumes that male rats don’t find female rats as attractive as we find human females. How would he know? Did he ask them? Given that it serves the same function in both species, i.e. sexual reproduction, I see no reason to doubt that a female rat can be attractive and beautiful in the mind of a male rat.