Christians and Their Homework!

[GrandizerII]

There are a couple points that caught my attention in this thread that I wanted to share my thoughts on. If I broke any forum rules, I apologize in advance. Please have mercy on a newbie!

Does lack of evidence for God justify atheism?
It appears to me that many people believe that we need proof to believe in God's existence and that in the absence of such proof, we shouldn't believe that God exists. The thing that puzzles me about this view is that if there are no good reasons to think that God exists and no good reasons to think that He doesn't, then I'd think we're left with agnosticism, not atheism. And it seems to me that in a truly neutral intellectual position on the existence of God, choosing to believe in God's existence would be the more pragmatic option given the choice between eternal salvation or damnation. Now, maybe some of you will argue that there are better reasons to think that God doesn't exist than otherwise, in which case, I'd say you're rationally justified in taking the atheist position. I'd argue though, that there are many good reasons to think that God exists and no good reasons to think that He doesn't, and thus that the atheist is simply mistaken.

Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. One can be an atheist and not believe in God, but also not confidently know whether their lack of belief reflects reality or not. Furthermore, even if a God did exist, he wouldn't necessarily be the God that you happen to worship. Therefore, for Pascal's Wager to be taken seriously, you not only need to demonstrate that a God exists, but you need to also demonstrate that such a God would be petty enough to harm you for eternity if you choose not to believe in him by the end of your current lifetime.

That said, what are good reasons to believe God exists given that such a grand entity is utterly lacking in evidence?

Evidence for God:
I'm simply shocked that some comments in this thread have mentioned there being no "proof" or "evidence" of the supernatural, much less God. It seems to me that there is an abundance of good reasons to think that God exists.

For you to be shocked, this probably means you haven't read much on the counterarguments against the arguments for God. That, or you're just saying you're shocked for some drama effect.

1. The Contingency Argument: If the universe exists contingently, then there must be a necessary first cause. That cause must be extremely powerful, immaterial, spaceless, timeless, self-existent, and in possession of a conscious mind. We call this first cause God.

Key word here is "if". If the universe exists contingently. What if it exists necessarily? Until you can demonstrate that the universe (or, rather, the cosmos) does not exist necessarily, there is no need to posit as an explanation such a logically problematic entity as your God (for which evidence is utterly lacking anyway).

2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument: The universe came into existence from nothing, and we call the transcendent cause of the universe which shares all the above properties God.

Except the universe didn't come into existence from nothing. This is a common misundnerstanding of the Big Bang theory, and it is nothing more than a misunderstanding. Therefore, no such logically problematic God required.

3. The Modal Ontological Argument: If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist, then by the nature of His being maximally great, He does exist. We call that being God.

Again, the key word here is "if". For such a God that is utterly lacking in evidence, do you even know it is even possible for the sort of "maximally great" being you're referring to to exist? I strongly doubt you do. You're just parroting current standard arguments for God without really thinking about the validity/soundness of such arguments. Perhaps that partly explains why you're shocked that we are saying there are no good reasons to believe God exists.

4. The Teleological Argument: The best explanation for the extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe of the existence of life is a highly intelligent transcendent being. We call that being God.

Says who? The universe may be part of a wider cosmos, which may contain an infinite number of universes, and as such, some of them may be bound to be "fine-tuned" for the existence of life. As in 100% bound. And what makes you even think this universe is actually fine-tuned for life anyway? Does it look like this universe is fine-tuned for life, considering most of it is actually without life? It seems egocentric to boldly assert that this universe is fine-tuned for life.

And why do you Christian apologists keep committing the "universe/cosmos" equivocation fallacy? Could you stop treating this local universe that we observe to be "all there is"?

5. The Moral Argument: Objective moral values exist and must be grounded in an objective standard. We call this standard God.

Objective moral standard = God? Says who?

6. The Historical Argument: The best explanation of the historical facts surrounding the apostles' claims of Jesus' resurrection, boldness in proclaiming the Gospel, and eventual martyrdom, as well as the rise of early Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus, the best explanation of which is God.

And this is based on scant evidence (if any), along with questionable asserted "historical facts". And besides, even if we agreed with the "historical facts", using Bayes' theorem in this case would not lead to the resurrection of Jesus being the most credible, simply because the probability of someone rising from the dead is so incredibly low that you would need incredibly clear evidence for such a phenomenon in order to compensate for the incredibly low initial credence reasonably assigned to it. This means that one could easily come up with better explanations for the "historical facts" you mention without involving the resurrection of anyone, and it doesn't really matter which one of such explanations exactly, because (so long as they're reasonable) they would all be better than the explanation you posit.

7. Testimony: The vast number of widespread, independent eyewitness testimonies of miracles, answered prayer, transformation of character, and personal experience with God give us good reason to believe that God does exist.

Or good reason why we should take anthropology/sociology/psychology seriously. And in fact, naturalistic explanations given by experts in relevant fields for such phenomena are far more credible than positing an entity which we don't really need in order to explain such collective human behavior, especially one for which there is no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate its existence.

I'm sure none of you are strangers to these classical arguments but I think it's highly unfair to dismiss them as bad arguments. If you were really skeptical, I'd think you'd regard them as contentious at worst, and less plausible than positive arguments for atheism at best, but not entirely dismiss them to say that there's "no evidence" of God's existence!

I'm sorry, but terribly bad arguments for God are terribly bad reasons to believe God exists.

Grounding morality on human happiness
I don't see how morality can be objectively grounded on human happiness or the prevention of pain. In order for something to be objective, it must remain true regardless of whether anyone agrees with it. Even if every human being on earth agreed that happiness was equivalent to the good, that wouldn't make it any more true than if every human being agreed that 2+2=5. And it seems like it's often the case that people do disagree with whether everyone's happiness matters equally (eg. Hitler), so I find it especially implausible for objective moral values to be grounded in something as fickle and arbitrary as the majority's conception of human happiness.

I'm still very skeptical when it comes to the need for morality to have an objective grounding, but let's suppose that objective morality is a logical necessity. If human happiness can be objectively defined (or pain can be objectively defined), and especially if the definition is reasonable and solid, then perhaps no one needs to agree with the definition in order for human happiness (or the prevention of pain) to be the grounding for objective morality. After all, if every person on this planet believed that 2+2=5, it wouldn't change the fact that 2+2=4.

And nothing is more fickle and arbitrary than the idea of some God being the arbiter of moral truths. It's not like it is clear that God exists, and that he would clearly reveal all moral truths to us (in a clearly unambiguous manner) if he did exist.

The problem with grounding objective morality in happiness rears its ugly head in the plethora of unintuitive consequences that arise from utilitarianism as a moral theory (eg. condoning sadism and sacrificing some for the benefit of others).

And how would, pray tell, positing God as the arbiter of moral truths resolve such dilemmas?

Now, if the argument is that morality is subjective and that's ok, then it would seem to me that because there's no objective standard with which to compare moral actions, morality itself would be illusory.

So what would be the logical problem here?

Under moral relativism, the Holocaust will share the same moral status as aiding the poor; one action cannot be said to be more right than the other and morality is reduced to mere human taste and preference.

Do you think most people on this planet think the Holocaust was as morally right as aiding the poor? Please don't be silly.

If you share my intuition that there's something horribly wrong with this view, then I think you'd agree with me that there are such things as objective moral values.

Not necessarily. Morality could still be subjective even if all agreed about the moral rightness of each action ever committed.

God as the source of objective morality
So, if objective moral values do exist, then I think in virtue of being the maximally great being, God is the perfect candidate for being the objective source of morality. This doesn't mean that people who don't believe in God can't know or do good, nor does it mean that we don't have a responsibility to think hard about what is right or wrong. Positing God as the source of objective morality is an ontological statement, not an epistemic one. The Bible and God's revelations are certainly ways in which we can discover what these objective moral values are, but they definitely don't preclude reason, emotion, and intuition as tools of discernment.

As I argued above, obective moral values (should they exist) need not be grounded in such a logically (and morally) problematic being as the God that you worship.

And the Bible is a terrible way to discover objective moral values. Why? Because the Bible contains multiple contradictions when it comes to morality. For example, the Bible commands Israelites not to commit murder, yet God nevertheless commands them to do just that on several occasions. It also doesn't say much (if anything) about most moral truths out there.

As for God's revelations ... what revelations?

And don't you think "emotion" and "intuition" seem a little too subjective?

Euthyphro Dilemma
I would argue that this is a false dilemma and that a third option exists. I don't think objective moral values are abstract concepts that God pays homage to because He recognizes their inherent goodness, nor do I think that something is deemed morally correct merely because God commands it. Rather, I would argue that God's nature IS the good; that is, every moral action, value, and duty is evaluated against God's very nature (just, kind, loving, honest, etc).

So is it in God's "good" nature to send human beings to hell? To allow people to commit sin, even at the expense of others? To allow all sorts of sufferings and miseries to occur to people?

Our moral duty to obey God
Thus, because God is the ultimate source of objective morality, we as moral agents have a duty to obey God's commands and aim to act in accordance with His nature.

Duty to obey? Commands? This sounds like the kind of thing dictators expect from the people they rule. When I think objective morality, or morality for that matter, I don't think commandments or duties. I think welfare, equity, justice, and such.

Even if no human being recognizes God's moral law as correct, it wouldn't change the fact that God's nature is the objective standard of morality and that by disobeying Him or acting against His nature, human beings are liable for punishment.

Yeah, sorry, but this doesn't look like a moral and loving God to me.

In addition, if God is morally perfect (since morality is objectively grounded in His nature) and human beings are not, then it should not come as a surprise to us that we don't understand why God does or commands some of the things He does.

Atrocious actions are atrocious, regardless of who commits them. Don't be like the enabler who says to a victim of abuse that there is nothing wrong with the abuser.

With the knowledge that God is the source of objective morality, it seems to me that it's not only morally wrong for human beings to disobey His commands, but also horribly arrogant and unwise.

Just as it is horribly arrogant and unwise to fail to submit to an abusive human parent? And that's assuming God exists, and is the source of objective morality anyway, which thankfully isn't the case.

Slaughter of the Canaanites
Within the framework of objective morality I've discussed earlier, I think the slaughter of the Canaanites can be fully understood as an act of God's judgment. Certainly, as imperfect moral agents, we are normally prohibited from killing one another under God's moral law. However, under this version of Divine Command Theory, when God decrees a specific command to someone, that command takes moral precedence over the written law and it becomes that person's moral duty to obey that command.

You act as if there is nothing wrong with what you just said. If you experienced God commanding you to kill your loved ones, would you do it?

In the case of the Canaanites, God used Israel as an instrument with which to execute His will to punish the Canaanites for their sinfulness. If you were to ask why God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites instead of doing it Himself, I think God had a number of morally justifiable reasons. First, He was building Israel as God's nation, showing the Israelites a demonstration of His power so that they may revere Him as lord, and giving them the land promised to Abraham and his descendants.

Sounds like an insecure bully, if you ask me.

Second, God commanded the total annihilation of the Canaanites because he knew that paganism had to be completely wiped out or else it would have a corrupting influence on Israel. As we later learn, the Israelites disobeyed God and failed to destroy all the pagans, which ultimately led to Israel's fall into idolatry and rebellion against God in Judges. In the same way that He used Israel to bring judgment upon the Canaanites, God later uses the pagan armies of Babylon to bring judgment upon Israel for disobeying Him.

Thankfully, these are just stories you read in the Bible, nothing more. That said, one wonders why your God didn't instead encourage the Israelites and the Canaanites to live together in peace or something? This God sounds like the kind of God that ancient people would've come up with all on their own, without any actual supernatural prompting whatsoever.

Now, one more thing I might add is that God has the right to give and take life as He sees fit.

If true, then your God doesn't have much respect for us human beings.

However, God doesn't take life arbitrarily; because He is the morally perfect being, He doesn't do anything without a morally justifiable reason. The Canaanite adults were being reasonably punished for their sin, but what about the children? If you believe, as I do, that young children who die go to heaven, then it seems to me that God did them no wrong by taking their lives early, but actually showed them mercy by preventing them from growing up into a life of sin and allowing them to have an eternity of joy in heaven in exchange for momentary pain.

He could've just not have hell exist in the first place. Why the need for a hell anyway? Or why the need to kill anyone? A perfect God would've created at least a much more ideal world than this one.

You see now why we don't think there are good reasons to believe God (and your God, specifically) exists?