A Message to all Creationists.

I've recently received a lengthy comment to a post I wrote called "A Message to all Christians". The original comment from a creationist is here. My response is applicable to all creationists, and so I address it to you all, but I am going to respond specifically to this anonymous comment. I'd suggest reading the original comment first. You will likely, as a creationist, find yourself absolutely convinced by the arguments raised. Then prove yourself honest and read the other side of argument below. Anyway, here is my response:

Dear Anonymous,

I am going to perform for you the most gratuitously amicable favour of introducing you to reality. There will be no need to thank me afterwards. I do this purely to assist you in avoiding the same mistakes twice. This is going to be a long response and there will be no pictures. I will try to be as concise as possible but I trust you will understand that at times brevity must be sacrificed for the sake of accuracy and allowing space to provide the facts.

Your anecdote regarding a palaeontologist not believing in evolution was a delight to read, if only for the sheer improbability of the occurrence. You see the percentage of scientists qualified in the earth and life sciences (the relevant scientific fields) in your country that do not support the theory of evolution is 0.15% (Robinson 1995, data from Gallup). Since this is the same percentage of qualified historians that are Holocaust deniers, I must congratulate you on your improbable find. Perchance congratulations are not in order though, if it is this one improbable encounter that has led you to a life of subsequent delusion and probably the greatest cause for ignorance in your life.

Let's go through the quotes you provide to support your argument.

First you misquote Darwin as follows:

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted myself to a phantasy." (Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, 1887, Vol. 2 p.229)

Instead of answering you myself let's leave it up to Darwin by putting this particular quote back into it's context within the letter from which it was extracted, which was from a letter from Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell. I have highlighted your quote in italics and used bold to highlight the context within which it appears.

Ilkley Wells, Yorkshire,

November 23 [1859].

My dear Lyell,

You seemed to have worked admirably on the species question; there could not have been a better plan than reading up on the opposite side. I rejoice profoundly that you intend admitting the doctrine of modification in your new edition; nothing, I am convinced, could be more important for its success. I honour you most sincerely. To have maintained in the position of a master, one side of a question for thirty years, and then deliberately give it up, is a fact to which I much doubt whether the records of science offer a parallel. For myself, also, I rejoice profoundly; for, thinking of so many cases of men pursuing an illusion for years and often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a phantasy. Now I look at it as morally impossible that investigators of truth, like you and Hooker, can be wholly wrong, and therefore I rest in peace. Thank you for criticisms, which, if there be a second edition, I will attend to. I have been thinking that if I am much execrated as an atheist, etc., whether the admission of the doctrine of natural selection could injure your works; but I hope and think not, for as far as I can remember, the virulence of bigotry is expended on the first offender, and those who adopt his views are only pitied as deluded, by the wise and cheerful bigots.

I cannot help thinking that you overrate the importance of the multiple origin of dogs. The only difference is, that in the case of single origins, all difference of the races has originated since man domesticated the species. In the case of multiple origins part of the difference was produced under natural conditions. I should infinitely prefer the theory of single origin in all cases, if facts would permit its reception. But there seems to me some à priori improbability (seeing how fond savages are of taming animals), that throughout all times, and throughout all the world, that man should have domesticated one single species alone, of the widely distributed genus Canis. Besides this, the close resemblance of at least three kinds of American domestic dogs to wild species still inhabiting the countries where they are now domesticated, seem to almost compel admission that more than one wild Canis has been domesticated by man. [Page 26] I thank you cordially for all the generous zeal and interest you have shown about my book, and I remain, my dear Lyell,

Your affectionate friend and disciple,

CHARLES DARWIN.

Sir J. Herschel, to whom I sent a copy, is going to read my book. He says he leans to the side opposed to me. If you should meet him after he has read me, pray find out what he thinks, for, of course, he will not write; and I should excessively like to hear whether I produce any effect on such a mind.

So, as you see, and you can clearly confirm this yourself, Darwin was certainly not claiming his discovery to be a fantasy.

Your next quote:

"Evolution is the backbone of biology and biology is thus in a peculiar position of being a science founded on unproven theory. Is it then a science of faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation. Both are concepts which the believers know to be true, but neither up to the present, has been capable of proof." (L.H. Matthews, Introduction of the 1971 edition of Origin of the Species pp. x,xi)

I do not posses a copy of the 1971 edition of Origin of Species and neither can I verify its existence. You will however note that Darwin died in 1882 and thus, even if your quote is genuine, I find little connection between Darwin's work and a 1971 quote.

In fact, the only place I can find that quote is on creationist web sites and in a 64 page booklet by the creationist Ralph O. Muncaster. I do not know that the quote is a fake as I do not have the reference to demonstrate that, however it is extremely likely that it is a fake and that it has never appeared in any publication of The Origin of Species. Even if I am wrong and this quote does appear in an edition of the Origin of Species, it is simply the comment of a secondary commentator which is thoroughly rebuked by the simple fact that significant evidence does exist for evolution. The latest such evidence published is the observation of a rapid evolutionary change in the Great Eggfly (a.k.a. Blue Moon) butterfly on the Samoan Island of Savaii published in the July 13 edition of Science.

Furthermore, scientific theories are never proven. That is simply not how science works and any scientist would know that. They may only be disproved. A theory is a hypothesis that has been tested and supported by subsequent evidence. So the theory of evolution is a tested hypothesis that is to date supported by absolutely all resultant evidence and contradicted by none. If this were not so the theory of evolution would be a disproved theory and relegated to the junk heap of human imagination.

In other words, this quote reveals only that you, and the person you quote, are not in accordance with the evidence and demonstrate no knowledge of the scientific method.

Moving on you then choose to quote Darwin again, claiming not to have written down the precise source of the quote:

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting to the focus of different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." (Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species
I did not write down the page number. I'm sure you can look it up in your own copy. I believe it is from the chapter entitled, "Problems with the Theory.")

Let's put this one in context as well by providing the full quote, which incidentally can be found in The Origin of Species, Chapter 6, under the heading "Organs of extreme perfection and complication". Again I have highlighted your partial quote in italics. It does not seem necessary to bold the relevant context since it is all entirely relevant.

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.

It doesn't quite present the opinion you were attempting to claim it does, does it! In fact, it states the reverse.

I believe at this point we are starting to see a pattern emerge. The quotes you offer are classic examples of the intellectually vacuous practice of quote mining – the practice of taking small quotations from within their explanatory context to attempt to reverse their meaning, a classic and dishonest tactic of creationist goons, incapable of facing reason and so determining to cheat and lie instead. When they are not cases of quote mining then they are nothing more than commentary by others and represent nothing more than an argument from authority, a classic logical fallacy known to be worthless by atheist and theist philosophers alike, without even the good grace to provide a credible source for that "authority". Anyway, let's move on and see if matters improve.

Your next quote:

"Evolution is unproved and improvable, we believe it only because the alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable." (–Sir Arthur Keith, a Scottish anatomist and anthropologist, and was a leading figure in the study of Human fossils.)

I can't find this quote attached to Sir Arthur Keith in any source other than creationist literature. Since it is well published that he was in fact a proponent of evolution, I suspect this also to be a fake. Regardless, it would still be nothing more than an argument from authority and thus worthless. Evidence is required, not opinion, regardless of who's the opinion is.

I'd also point out that the fifth word of the quote is "improvable" and not "unprovable", which I suspect many people misread or misinterpret. I'll mention one last time that science never proves theories; it only offers evidence to support them or evidence that disproves them. Only evidence to support evolution has ever been found. You seem unaware of the scientific method and perhaps that is why you do not appreciate it.

However, even if the above quote is not a fake allow me to point out that Keith was suspected as a co-conspirator of the Piltdown Man Hoax and was not an anti-Christian as the creationist literature claims but he did have some unusual ideas regarding Jews. Amongst his famous quotes that are verifiable are such gems as:

"Another mark of race possessed by the Jews must be mentioned. Their conduct is regulated by a ‘dual code‘; their conduct towards their fellows is based on one code (amity), and that towards all who are outside their circle on another (enmity). The use of the dual code, as we have seen, is a mark of an evolving race. My deliberate opinion is that racial characters are more strongly developed in the Jews than in any other race."

Sir Arthur Keith, ‘A new Theory of Human Evolution‘ 1948

And:

"The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution."

Sir Arthur Keith, 'Evolution and Ethics', Putnam, New York, 1947, p. 230.

Anyway, that was the last quote you provided, all of which I think I have adequately exposed as the fatuous attempts to gain legitimacy by fraud that they are. Let's move on to the rest of your misunderstanding.

You claim that any honest person must admit that neither evolution nor creationism is actual science. Actually there are many thousands of papers published in peer reviewed scientific journals demonstrating evolution as a science. Many thousands of scientists, including in Iran of all places, carry out research on government and private funds exposing the finer detail on specifics of evolution on a daily basis. Modern pharmacology is highly influenced by evolutionary theory, especially with regards to treatments for bacterial and viral disorders and genetic disease.

Millions of independent pieces of evidence in fields from palaeontology to the study of the HIV virus are all mutually corroboratory and absolute in support of evolutionary theory. In fact, not one single piece of evidence so far discovered and not one living organism yet studied has presented any contradiction to evolutionary theory. The study of evolution is most certainly a science and billions of dollars each year invested globally in all fields of the life sciences absolutely concur with that fact.

Let's move on to creationism, where the conclusion is less kind. Not one shred of evidence that contradicts evolution has ever been presented by creationists. Not one Intelligent Design proponent or Creationist (they are one and the same intellectual abomination) has ever been published in a peer reviewed journal. Creationism as it relates to a young Earth is also absolutely contradicted by evidence from archaeology, anthropology, astronomy, astrophysics, biology, history, genetics, geology, molecular biology, radiology and many other and more specific fields of research. In the meantime not one creationist argument has stood up to scrutiny. Not one creationist has provided any evidence. Not one creationist hypothesis has been proposed and tested and that is why to this date there does not exist a single creationist theory. Creationism is supported by a sum total of ZERO evidence.

Creationism is most certainly not a science.

Your quotes are either misquotes out of their context, which I have provided above, or arguments from authority (meaningless, that is if they are not simply fake). In other words your entire counter argument against evolution amounts to absolutely nothing. Much of your argument after the quotes relies on your Darwin misquotes, which I have already debunked, and so you are left with absolutely nothing in your argument beyond "I have faith", which is all you can have since you have absolutely nothing else to support your belief.

You have misquoted scientists and misrepresented facts and the sole reason that I do not label you as an idiot and a liar is because I am labouring under the generous assumption that you are simply genuinely mistaken and misled by unscrupulous charlatans as opposed to being one yourself. I must point out however that I have trouble maintaining this charitable assumption since in your original anecdote you describe scientists unpacking T-Rex fossils from Utah for assembly whilst on open display, when this would almost certainly be a closed door procedure requiring an exacting inventory and cataloguing procedure which would not take place on the museum floor and the later arrangement would be subject to rigorous and careful safety controls to protect the fossils and this would be so in virtually any museum on the planet, very probably every museum - even in the third world. In other words, I am virtually certain that even the introductory premise for your later comments is an outright lie. As I have previously said though, I shall generously allow you the benefit of this near imperceptible doubt.

Anyway, moving on to the rest of your comment.

You said:

Have you ever visited Mount Rushmore? I have been blessed (or lucky from your perspective :) to have had the opportunity of visiting 47 states, most provinces in Canada and several foreign countries (I am currently composing this message in Africa on my laptop computer and will send it thought an MTN antenna). You would call me a fool if I looked at Mount Rushmore and tried to convince you that water erosion had carved those faces over billions of years. And yet, you choose to look in the mirror every morning and convince yourself that the living, breathing, wonderfully designed image you see in the mirror is a fabulous miracle of natural selection having happened without design over billions of years. [Pause] OK, you have the right to believe that, but please change the name of your blog to something like "choosefaith." -Because truly your faith is far greater than Rhology's or mine.

I have travelled extensively, having lived for many years outside of the country of my birth, yet I see no reason why this experience would qualify me or anybody else to comment on matters of scientific truth unless I had undertaken relevant scientific research during those travels and was thus commenting on the evidence. I have not seen Mount Rushmore first hand, but again I find this of no relevance in evaluating the evidence with regards to the theory of evolution. I wonder, have you ever seen of the Face on Mars because it was precisely weather erosion that created that. But that is also absolutely meaningless with regards to evolution.

What your statement really boils down to is this "How can complexity come from a non-intelligent process?" and it is precisely this question that evolution so thoroughly and demonstrably answers. Let's take a more famous example of this same question, William Paley's Watchmaker Analogy:

1. If you look at a watch, you can easily tell that it was designed and built by an intelligent watchmaker.
2. Similarly, if you look at some natural phenomenon X (a particular organ or organism, the structure of the solar system, life, the entire universe) you can easily tell that it was designed and built by an intelligent creator/designer.

Before we go on to complexity in life let's first point out that the formation of the solar system is staggeringly well understood and requires only natural law, not a designer, to have formed the star and the planets and moons and coordinate their motion.

With regards to the complexity of life, Charles Darwin actually read Paley's argument whilst he was studying theology at Christ's College, Cambridge in 1831 and believed it to be rational proof of the existence of a god. Do you understand the importance of that? The watchmaker argument (identical to your Mount Rushmore argument) actually preceded Darwin's discovery of evolution and Darwin himself was convinced by that very same argument prior to his discovery of evolution by natural selection. Darwin, like Paley, believed that living beings showed such a high degree of complexity and that they were so exquisitely suited to their environments that they must have been designed.

Later however, on the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin became suspicious of Paley's argument as he encountered a wider range of species and began to formulate his own ideas. After he had returned from his voyage he formulated his Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection as a superior explanation to Paley's Intelligent Design argument and provided documented evidence to support his new claim.

I think you need to understand that Intelligent Design is not a challenger to Evolution by Natural Selection. Intelligent Design was the established understanding prior to Darwin's theory and was thoroughly defeated by it. The problem here is that you just don't have any education with regards to evolution by natural selection, which is a massive liability for you if you hope to oppose it.

Let me try and fill you in a bit.

Evolution by Natural Selection was so named because Darwin was highlighting the similarity between selection that takes place in nature and the artificial selection that was already well documented and had been used for many centuries by humans in the breeding of a wide range of animals and plants. Artificial selection was well understood and well practiced in the breeding of dogs, cattle, horses, flowers, and a wide array of other plants and animals. It was established fact that by controlling which individuals mated and produced offspring that you could steer towards desirable traits, such as fast horses or spotted dogs, over several generations.

Darwin realised that the same process was possible without a person controlling the breeding. Nature could, and in fact does, control the breeding because the environment determines which animals survive long enough to breed. As the environment changes or as organisms migrate to different environments, nature is selecting which organisms survive long enough to breed and which do not. The result is accumulated changes which over many generations can result in such huge changes that it is no longer possible for organisms to breed with the organisms they originally descended from. That is known as speciation. The whole thing is really that simple.

To sum up evolution by natural selection we can use the following phrase, which I will explain afterwards.

Evolution occurs by the non-random selection of randomly varying replicators.

Now, the replicators are molecules of DNA, the genetic recipe to build an organism. If organisms reproduce sexually, that is by combining their DNA with the DNA of another of their species, then we immediately have variation between the parent and the child because we have a mix of both parents DNA. If the organism reproduces asexually, that is we have only one parent, then the child should be an exact copy of the parent.

Now, what happens with sexual reproduction is that the child has half its genes from one parent and half from the other. These are direct copies of the parent's genes. The combination is new but the genes are not. This is how artificial selection mostly works. We simply combine two parents with the desired trait and thus increase the probability that the offspring will inherit that trait. This is not how we end up with speciation, which is why it is possible to breed a Chihuahua with a Great Dane. Regardless of the variation in genes, two members of the same species have the same numbers of genes in the same addresses (locations within the DNA) and so they can still interbreed.

Rarely however there are errors when the DNA is copied. These errors are changes in the genetic recipe to build the organism and they are often harmless and often harmful but sometimes this random change actually results in a slightly changed offspring that has some small advantage over it's fellows in surviving to breed or having more offspring. This is the same for sexual and asexual reproduction.

Some of its offspring will inherit this new genetic advantage. They will also benefit from being more likely to have offspring and so over time this new or changed section of the genetic recipe becomes more and more common in amongst all the organisms of that type. There are two points to understand here. First, while the change is random whether or not the change helps the organism to survive to breed is not. If the change makes a bird's beak better able to get at a specific plant's seeds then it is obviously not a random truth that the bird that can get at the food stands a better chance of surviving to breed. Secondly, over time, the frequency of that gene – the number of organisms of that type that exist in that environment and carry that gene – will increase.

Now, let's imagine that we have one type of species and its many members live across a wide area. Through changes in the environment some get cut off from the rest and so they become two separate populations. Now, mutations that occur in each population will not be shared across the species as a whole. They may also face different environments and so different non-random selective pressures. Over many generations there is a good chance that each population will accumulate changes that are beneficial for them in their respective locations. If the two populations get back together somehow after a great deal of time then it is even possible that they will have changed so much in comparison to each other that they will no longer be able to interbreed. They have speciated.

This is evolution by natural selection, but it does not require populations to become geographically detached although that is a common factor.

The truth is that the accumulation of tiny changes over many thousands, and even millions, of generations can result in species that are incredibly different. If we follow this logic backwards over the periods of time many different sciences and dating techniques prove that life has existed for, then we can be very secure, also thanks to genetic information that we are now able to read, that absolutely every single living thing on this planet shares a common ancestor. Creationists like to get upset because they think evolutionists are calling them monkeys and this is simply untrue. What we are saying, and what we have mountains of evidence to prove, is that we are related to monkeys and around five million years ago we share a common ancestor with today's chimpanzees. But before you get upset, which incidentally does nothing to change the truth of the matter, keep the following in mind.

Not only are you related to chimpanzees and monkeys but you are related to every living thing that lives now and has ever lived on this world. Absolutely everything from a blade of grass to a whale is not just figuratively but is in actual fact your family. The simple yet beautiful process of evolution by natural selection - an observed, recorded and demonstrated fact supported by every piece of evidence on the planet – connects you to everyone and everything in nature for the entire history of this world. We are all cousins.

Thanks to the evidence, this is undeniable.

Now, you can still keep your faith if you really think you must but you have to face the fact that this creationist stuff is just plain wrong. I personally believe that the evidence shows that your faith is clearly wrong also, but if you can't bite that bullet yet at least face up to the truth that evolution is called a theory in science but in science what we call a theory is what non-scientists call fact. If you'd like read from and get in touch with other Christians that remain Christian but have accepted that evolution is a fact then try the Old Earth Network to begin with. They are Christians who keep their faith but accept the truth of evolution.

If you'd like to know more about the fact of evolution and why creationism is certainly false please feel free to leave me a comment or head over to Talk Origins, where they have article after article and scientific proof after scientific proof that explains the errors and the lies of EVERY creationist argument that has ever been raised.

All the best,

CD

If you enjoyed this article please feel free to digg it down below.

Atheist Morality Blogalogue Part 2.

Introduction:

Theist blogger Rhology and I are debating morality. In Part 1 of this debate Rhology started things off and I then responded. The debate now continues with Rhology’s response. My own response will be tagged on to this post just as soon as I have completed it (I have some exams at this time and so can’t guarantee that I will complete this before Wednesday – will do my best though). In the meantime, I'd like to thank Rhology for his response.

SKIP TO PART: 1 | 2

Part 2 continues ...

Posted by Rhology on Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Hi ChooseDoubt,

Thanks for your rebuttal. This length of post seems to be good and I'll try to stay in that range myself.

I'll address your rebuttal in two sections, the minor point 1st and the major 2nd.

1) My Morality

You are right that my morality is based on the teachings of the Bible, b/c I believe it is the Word of God, breathed out by God. You have suggested that I incompletely follow the Bible's directives b/c they do not fit my preference. My contention is that I do indeed do so but it is against my desire; rather, I *desire* to follow all of God's directives but I am a sinner and so fail. It is your responsibility, however, to prove that I intentionally refuse to hold to applicable directives.

You cited Leviticus 20:10 and 15:19-24 and assumed I do not follow them. The only way your charge against me will stick, however, is if you demonstrate proper exegesis of the biblical text. This is a task that you, as an atheist, will probably be hard-pressed to perform. We can wait and see, but already you've gone far astray and failed to inspire much confidence up front.

Levitical law was specifically directed towards the ancient Hebrews, who lived in a theocratic society governed directly by God. They were to worship God in the Temple/tabernacle, ritually pure, thru a sacrificial system. The sacrificial system, as the book of Hebrews tells us, was a shadow of Christ, was to point to Christ's sacrifice. Ritual purity/impurity was never a matter of simple outward performance but was always a matter of the heart. Now, after Christ's coming, the outward performance of ritual purity is done away with; purity resides in the heart and spirit (Hebrews, Romans 14, 1 Cor 8, Mark 7:14-23).

Moreover, as theocratic society, they had their own juridical laws (ie, the OT Law), judicial system, social laws, etc. Church and st were not separate.

Many instances in the New Testament, however, indicate that Christians are to submit themselves to the law of the land in which they live except where the law violates God's commands (Rom 13, 1 Peter, Matt 22:20-22). Ancient Hebrew gov't policy would have been to execute Abhishek and Savdeep; current US law is not to. So I don't.

2) Your Morality

Yet, in an atheist universe, so what if I did go out w/ weapon in hand to wreak God's punishment on Abhishek and Savdeep?
In your pie example, you seem to be telling us that humans discover morality in a very similar way that they taste pie. That has been my point all along, in fact, and it is gratifying that we agree on that. In fact, I'd say that my thesis has been established given your admission. But I might be misreading you.

Let's say that I am let into the room to taste the pie. The 2nd man preferred the strawberry. I preferred the chocolate. We disagree now, based on our personal preferences.

In an atheist universe, we need to know on what basis one could know right from wrong in order to live personally and in society. Your answer is to taste the pie. Very well; you like strawberry pie. I like torturing 6-yr-old girls for fun. You like sex w/ hyena carcasses, I like my pie à la mode.

Now, you said:

Instead we can use real world, case specific information to make such choices.

Which we do every day, whether it's tasting pie, judging whether the bus is going to run over us, or figuring whether it would be preferable to torture that 6-yr-old girl for the heck of it or not to. The problem is the faculty we'd use to MAKE the decision, not the supporting info.

And this brings me to the final point. You said:

in claiming God is necessary for morality would you then be of the opinion that without your belief in a god you would begin raping, murdering and stealing with no personal capacity to differentiate what you currently consider to be right from wrong?

I have no idea what kind of person I'd be if I didn't believe in God. My guess is I'd be a fairly decent citizen b/c that's how I was brought up. I'd also probably be addicted to science fiction novels and games, into porn and incredibly depressed. I'm not certain, but that's where my pre-Jesus life was heading.

However, since atheism offers NO moral guidance beyond personal (or, at best, societal) preference, the fact that neither you nor I would probably be inclined to believe that torturing 6-yr-old girls for fun is morally acceptable and would try to stop it if we observed it is due to your borrowing capital from my worldview. You have no way at all to make any objective morality judgment, so, either wittingly or unwittingly, you are reaching over to Christianity, snatching most of our moral framework, importing it back to your own, and then acting like it IS your own and continuing your attacks on Christianity. But when I ask to see the serial number on the gun, I see that it came from my own shop. You ask,

I think you would need to define what properties of this god make it uniquely valid as an external validator of "preference" above any other external validator?

The God of the Bible (TGOTB) created the universe, the spiritual realms, and all spiritual and physical beings. He holds them all together at every moment. He gave laws to mankind that flow out from His nature. Ie, He is loving; He commands humans to love. He is just; He commands humans to be just and fair. He is holy; He commands humans to be holy. Etc.
I know you don't buy that, but that's the Christian worldview. And given that you have to borrow from it to make your own moral standards, it's hard to take seriously any claim beyond personal preference for an atheistic morality.


Peace,
Rhology

Posted by ChooseDoubt, Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Hi Rhology,

Thanks for your response. Before I get on and answer that I'd just like to clean up a few points, as raised by G-Man in my comments section and one or two of my own.

First of all the title of this Blogalogue may be a little misleading. Atheism is simply the absence of belief in a god and as such morality may be as variable between atheists as it is between various religious sects. With that in mind, when I mention specific moral examples I speak only for myself and I do not represent other atheists, although many may agree with me.

G-man raises the question of what we mean by morality and it's a good point. We could go for a dictionary definition which boils down to concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong, but then we would be forced to define good and evil and right and wrong and that itself would boil down to that which is moral and that which is not. It is circular reasoning and not especially useful. That's why I'm going to go into some detail in this post on the flexibility of those considerations dependent upon circumstance and how that proves that absolutes, as prescribed by religions, are in fact destined to fail with regards to the flexibility of human experience.

Anyway, let's move on.

Your first criticism of my argument in which I stated that you do not follow the morality of the Bible is that you desire to and so your failure is unintentional. This immediately highlights one obvious truth – religious faith, and even your extensive religious education, does not ensure that you follow the faith based moral code. So your key argument that one cannot be moral without a god can in fact be expanded by your own evidence to no better than one cannot be moral with or without a god. Indeed, it is a main precept of Christianity that you are irrevocably a sinner and thus immoral for your entire life. Religious belief has not made you moral by the standard which you declare uniquely viable and that very same standard declares in all certainty that you can never be moral.

Secondly, you state that you cannot be bound to the example Old Testament edicts of God that I mentioned, specifically Leviticus 20:10 and 15:19-24, through an argument of exegesis that I as an atheist would struggle to understand. This is an empty argument and the common resort of a theologian who has no adequate response to the question – effectively the "you just don't get it" argument. Leviticus 15:19-24 may indeed apply only to the Ancient Hebrews, although I am not aware that it is so, but Leviticus 20:10 is also specified in the Ten Commandments and so it is inescapable that it remains in effect. As Jesus mentioned in Matthew 5:17-20

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus, whilst he may later have said "he without sin etc" was very clear above in specifying that he is making no change to Old Testament law. Thus your morality, if it is by the book, must include, as a minimum, the support for the murder of adulterers, amongst others, since any other response, even if it is in accordance with the law of the land, remains in violation of god's commands which you state yourself is defined as a time when the faithful should follow primarily the law of god and not that of the land. By a similar standard the law of god allows the keeping of slaves. The law of the land is not in agreement and thus the law of god must trump it. So I remain convinced that your failure to follow all biblical requirements for a moral life is not simply a matter of failure but a matter of choice. Your morality remains pure preference and all that you can claim to do is prefer some, but not all, of the biblical requirements.

Before moving on to my morality, let's get this pie business out of the way. The two points I wished to make with the pie thought experiment were that there are criteria for making value judgements and the subsequent assessment of their validity and that those criteria do not require a god, as was your assertion. The criteria can be established based on learning from experience and causality. I now argue that not only does this hold true for our entire approach to morality but it is also what held true for the evolutionary development of behaviour that we now call moral – call it the Blind Moral-maker if you wish. I'm going to come back to that in a little while when I explore evolutionary origins of morality.

Continuing with the pie thought experiment you contest that if you then had option to taste the pies and you preferred one and that the previously stated second man preferred the other then that this constitutes a problem for morality. It does not and that will be covered in evolutionary morality, but for now let me just simply agree with you – yes, it all comes down to personal preference. Where you go wrong is in assuming each preference for an individual to be independent of all others preferences. You fail to take into account the group dynamic of multiple personal preferences, which renders your fear of personal preference null.

You accuse me of having to borrow Christian morality to create my own moral standards. This is frankly absurd. If I happen to agree that grass is green have I borrowed that definition from Jesus (Mark 6:39)? This is clearly not true and can be demonstrated further by your indication that you would have approved of killing Abhishek and Savdeep under Ancient Hebrew law. I, if god appeared to me personally and demanded that I do it, would still flatly refuse. If I happen to agree then I agree. If I do not agree then I do not. No argument from authority, regardless of the authority, will change my mind. Your commanded morality appears extremely weak and vacuous by comparison and so perhaps the reason why you cannot understand that anybody else may have personal morality without the need for a religious crutch is because you lack it. Your own morality is thus rendered as nothing greater than mindless obedience, elicited only by the promise of personal punishment or personal reward. This is even more base than the evolutionary basis for morality which does permit the individual to commit truly selfless acts.

But even if we restrict your borrowing charge simply to morality then I can only presume that Jesus likewise borrowed the Golden Rule from The Mahabharata, Confucius, Hilel, Buddha, Zarathustra, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, not to mention in more limited form (only applied to "the children of thy people" – the Golden Race Rule) from Leviticus 19:34. And surely, if you are to claim that my own moral vacuity requires this borrowing of your religions "original" morality then how can one account for those that espoused morals displayed without such influence, and even in contradiction of such influence? As Christopher Hitchens puts it:

"Is it to be believed that the Jews got as far as Sinai under the impression that murder, theft, and perjury were more or less all right? And, in the story of the good man from Samaria, is it claimed that the man went out of his way to help a fellow creature because of a divine instruction? He was clearly, since he preceded Jesus, not motivated by Christian teaching. And if he was a pious Jew, as seems probable, he would have had religious warrant and authority NOT to do what he did, if the poor sufferer was a non-Jew."

I think it is clear that religion is certainly not the fountain from which all morality gushes. It does seem to be the fountain from which morality that involves the punishment of victimless "crimes" has poured forth. My morality, although still undefined, appears far superior at this point.

So let's define my morality. I don't have any. I judge purely according to circumstance and admit freely that there is no absolute right or absolute wrong within it, just as I would point out that there is no absolute right or absolute wrong embedded as a moral code in the natural laws of this universe. The universe, of which we are part, is effectively indifferent to us and our suffering or happiness. We can choose to consider happiness and suffering as important though, and I will now point out how such consideration has its origin in our evolutionary past and most certainly not in any scripture.

The natural world is literally full of what are commonly known as symbiotic relationships. What is actually occurring in these relationships is a situation where two species benefit from asymmetric needs. The flower, in need of pollination, has a deal with the bee in need of nectar. The Honeyguide is capable of finding beehives but incapable of breaking into them. It uses a method of enticing flight, a behaviour only used for this purpose, to guide the Ratel to the hive. Conversely, the Ratel can break the hives but is far from adept at finding them. Relationships of asymmetric needs are incredibly abundant in the natural world and absolutely all of them can be explained easily in terms of natural selection. This establishes at least one route, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, to cooperative behaviour.

But there are more routes. Humans can defer reciprocal back scratching to a later date by use of an IOU. Vampire bats have been shown to do the same by exhibiting significant memory in the postponed trading of regurgitated blood between individuals. An individual that does not pay its debts soon finds it is no longer provided hand outs. This is observable long term moral behaviour in creatures with brains no bigger than a Lady Bug. There are many other examples, ranging from interspecies cooperation between different species of fish to relationships between whole groups of wide ranges of species to alert for common predators. It's far from uncommon in the natural world to cooperate.

Beyond that we also have what would appear to be pure altruism. Arabian babblers regularly give food to each other whilst refusing its return. In fact, they also compete for the extremely dangerous position of being the one bird that sits on a high branch keeping watch for hawks and alerting the others. It appears that both altruistic behaviours are in fact shows of dominance, effectively saying "Look how superior I am, I can afford to give you food or take the higher risk of watching for hawks". The increased cost of giving and risk taking is offset by the increased breeding advantages.

Even more impressive is that once we understand that the unit of selection is not the individual but the gene then even the most seemingly selfless of behaviours makes evolutionary sense, and we can now be sure that the unit of selection is the gene and not the individual. An individual will live only one life time. The individual genes that contribute to an individual may persist for thousands or even millions of future generations. Once we understand this it becomes clear that natural selection works not on the individual but on the frequency of genes within the entire gene pool. Natural selection will therefore favour genes that elicit behaviour that benefits the survival of the gene above behaviour that simply benefits the survival of the individual. In communities of individuals, and this is very true of our earlier origins, the chances that most of the individuals around an individual shared many of its genes were extremely high. It is perfectly in accordance with Blind Moral-making therefore that behaviours would be favoured that promoted the survival of other individuals in your group and thus their shared genes. This is exactly what we see in small community species, such as we originally were.

Altruism, deferred trades, dominance displays and in-group loyalties are all very well explained by evolution and many examples of our own moral behaviours are available in the rest of the natural world. There is absolutely no need to bring intelligence or a god into morality to explain its origins. To consider that religion is a prerequisite for moral behaviour could only lead us to conclude that there must be a god of the fish, of the bees, of the ants, of the birds, of the badgers, the Chimpanzees and countless other species. It must lead us to presume that each group must have it's own commandments, it's own Jesus and it's own culture through which these divine moral teachings is passed between generations.

With our own species, and I am not limiting this only to our own species, then our intelligence and our culture also certainly comes into play. We are able to predict, albeit with some uncertainty, the future and we are able to exploit such thinking in the application of our natural moral imperatives. I, as do some other species, have specific sections of the brain that mirror empathically (not by any telepathic means, purely by observation) the actions and subsequent emotions of others. This makes me a better co-operator and is in fact the basis of the Golden Rule which is observed in practice in other species. We are naturally aware of happiness and suffering.

My ability to relate to suffering and happiness in others and my own preferences, which are largely shared by the rest of my species, for happiness above suffering provide an ideal biological explanation of morality. Additionally, this shared ability within my species enables us to generally agree on matters of moral preference, until that is we start to moralise about victimless crimes – the fault of religious morality and almost invariably traceable to an individuals desire for dominance or control. The fact that we share moral hardware and software means that personal preference is all that is needed. The preferences of the group tending to correct for any anomalous individual variation and that is natural selection at work. Anomalies, parasitical morality, have a strong tendency to be selected against or to be selected in favour against morality that has no defence against parasitical variants. Species that live in groups survive in groups because they have sufficient evolved morality to survive in groups and that is entirely down to natural selection of individual genes.

Anyway, I am sure that most will be of the opinion that I have written too much and so I will draw to a close. But I hope I have provided sufficient argument against your assertion that morality can only comes from religion and G-man's assertion in comments that if I really do claim morality to be a purely personal preference, which I do on the individual scale, that I have some how argued for an immoral explanation of atheist morality.

Lastly, I hope the above provides you with the natural account of the faculty we use to make moral decisions because it certainly offers a reasonable explanation of why, even before your faith took over your morality, you were not out raping, murdering, and stealing as the vast majority of atheists are not.

Peace,

CD

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