>> ZJ: Hi, Will. I saw your video, and it was very interesting. I think you brought
up some issues that should be explored further. One of the first things you mentioned is how
you were puzzled that atheists would "witness", because you thought that most of them would
say it's "wrong to pressure your beliefs on other people". But if you noticed, many of
the problems I pointed out in my video are specifically the result of religious people
spreading their beliefs and forcing them on others. In fact, that's exactly what we take
issue with. Objecting to this, and discouraging them from doing that is really not the same
thing as doing that ourselves. Supporting something, and opposing it are actually the
exact opposite of one another. It's like saying "do this!", versus "no, don't!" In any case,
atheism does not entail any position on whether to spread one's atheism or keep it private,
and as I said, this is matter of personal preference among atheists. You then said that
it's up to atheists to prove that your beliefs are false and that the Christian god does
not exist. Okay. But before we get to that, you should first prove that your beliefs are
true and that your god exists. Your belief is not something that can automatically be
assumed to be true simply because you believe it. It's not up to the rest of us to prove
you wrong if you haven't yet gone to the effort of proving why you're right. Otherwise, anyone
could demand that you disprove any number of things, without having even proven them
in the first place. There should at least be some reason for why we should consider
something to be true, before we go about the task of proving it false. You later noted
that I recognize that there are objective truths, and from there, you went on to assume
that this must mean there are objective moral values. You said that if we don't believe
good and evil exist, then this means there is no objective truth, and so we have no grounds
to say anything is false. But that's not necessarily so. Just because some things are objectively
true does not mean that there must be objective truths which consist of moral statements.
You're conflating two separate things here. Of course there are objective truths, there
just might not be any that are statements of morality. And it seems that this may be
the case. Obviously there are plenty of people who have claimed that their morality is objectively
true. They'd like to think that their morality is a pure and simple fact, embedded in the
universe itself. The thing is, none of them have been able to show that such objective
morals exist. So, in the absence of any objective morals, where do we go from here in terms
of morality? I think this makes it clear that morality is a human invention, and something
we have to work out for ourselves. For some issues, it may be possible to make better
arguments for certain moral principles than for others. And for other issues, this may
not be as clear-cut. It's possible that a strong enough case could be made for some
morals that they could, for all intents and purposes, be treated as objective -- unless
and until they're superseded by better ones. But this doesn't mean that any of these morals
are actually objective, or that any objective morals exist. I'm not denying that they could,
but at present, there seems to be no reason to believe they do. So, if you're wondering
what I'm talking about when I say that something is right or wrong if I'm not referring to
any objective morals, I'm simply articulating my own understanding of morality. And I'm
also making a case for why my view of morality is worth adhering to and should be considered
more valid than other kinds of morality. I believe my sense of morality is defensible,
and I'm willing to engage with people who have other perspectives. Similarly, if you,
for example, want to explain why the writings of Paul the Apostle have any bearing on the
acceptability of same-sex relationships, or why people should die rather than accept blood
transfusions, or why African witch hunters should be allowed to set children on fire,
you're certainly welcome to try and make a case for that. And, in turn, other people
might disagree with you and argue that their own morals are better than yours. This is
the way it's always been: it's up to us to figure it out. If this strikes you as inelegant,
time-consuming, or possibly even dangerous with the potential for serious mistakes...
well, maybe it is. But it's all we have. Morality is never so simple as just saying something
is wrong for no reason other than "Sorry, it's objective, end of story!" That's religious
thinking. Certainly it might be comforting and convenient to imagine that our preferred
morals are simply prefabricated, ready-to-use objective facts and that's that, but there's
nothing to indicate that this is the case. And if this is uncomfortable to contemplate,
well, that's just something we have to come to terms with. We're not so much moral explorers,
seeking out and discovering objective morals that already exist in reality, as we are moral
architects and scientists, creating morals and putting them to the test to see how well
they fare. To me, this seems to be the most accurate accounting of how morality functions,
where our morals come from, how they're developed, how they progress, and why we consider them
to be valid. Now, you also offered a syllogism which argued that if good and evil exist,
then objective moral values exist, and that these objective morals must have come from
a "transcendent being" which you say is God. But what are good and evil, and what does
it mean to say that they exist? Are they actual objective properties that exist in reality?
Or are they just expressions of our own individual assessment of whether we consider something
to be right or wrong? Just because people might think certain things are good or evil,
this does not mean that they actually are, or that these things possess a real attribute
of being good or evil. You defined evil as a "deviation" from "how things ought to be",
which you see as a "design plan" that is laid out by a "designer". Yet the apparent absence
of objective morals suggests that no such design plan actually exists or has been developed
by a designer. So, who determines how things ought to be? It seems that we're the only
ones deciding that. We are the "designers" here. And no, I am not saying that we are
gods. There are no gods. That's why we're the ones who have to create a "design plan"
of how things should be. Just like morality, this sense of what "ought to be" is a human
construction. But even if we do accept for the sake of argument that there are objective
moral values that exist as a subset of objective truths, what makes you think these objective
morals must have come from a transcendent being? There are already objective truths
which do exist, without needing to be handed down by a transcendent being. For example:
The fact that when you group one object with another object, you now have two objects,
is objectively true without requiring any transcendent being to make it true. It's objectively
true in and of itself. Indeed, I'd be interested to hear of any possible way for a transcendent
being to make this untrue. So why is it that an objective moral could not also be true
in and of itself, as an intrinsic property of the universe? Why should that require a
transcendent being when other objective truths don't? And if a transcendent being did have
to create these objective morals, doesn't that mean that if it didn't create them, they
wouldn't have existed as truths at all, and the only reason they are true is because something
decided they should be? How can that be considered "objective"? Doesn't that make them just as
much of an artificiality as the morals that we come up with? There's also the question
of how you can go from positing a transcendent source of objective morals to concluding that
this is a god, but that's a whole other issue. Anyhow, I appreciate the response -- it's
certainly been thought-provoking. And to everyone, if I've gotten anything wrong here, please
let me know.