Reason Rally: Outrage!

[ApologiaPhoenix]

It's an outrage!

The link can be found here

The text is as follows:

Why is it that Unreasonables are so often emotional? Let's talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Lately I've been dialoguing on several fronts with atheists concerning the Reason Rally and one method of argumentation is to speak of something that angers the atheist in the Bible and then the argument is formed.

Premise: X occurs in the Bible.
Premise: I don't like X.
Conclusion: God does not exist.

Some might think this is simplistic, but it seems that for many, if you just mention the incident of Elisha and the two bears, well that's enough. The whole thing can be thrown out the window because of that and we can rest assured that Christianity is not true because the holy book contains something distasteful to us in it.

This gets us into what I wrote about last time. Most atheists do not bother to understand the Bible but only come with a superficial reading and act like that destroys all of it. Note I said most. There are some exceptions that are actually capable of dialoguing on the subject. For most, the story ends with something that is not liked and that is the end of it.

If you agree with them that it is distasteful, well you need to come out of your God belief because you would not condone it at all unless God did it. If you seek to explain the passage in question, well it's obvious that you really believe that the whole thing is horrid and you're just trying to justify that tension that you feel in your own mind.

Darned if you do. Darned if you don't.

There is no concept that this book was written in a different time, place, and culture. There is no idea that if God exists, then we should not really expect Him to be just like us and if He is the Lord of all the universe, He does have that authority to take lives as He is the giver and sustainer of all life and He does not owe anyone their life, or anything else for that matter.

Now I am not going to write out a defense of every single event in the Bible. I have written about many elsewhere and will be glad to pull up anything I have written if need be. I mainly want to counter the basic thrust that I see throughout the whole argument. It is the idea that because something is distasteful or seen as morally evil, then obviously the Bible is not the Word of God.

It's not really that obvious. It could be many times we do not understand something properly and when that happens, we need to improve our understanding. If we are right, further research will help to elucidate that. If we are wrong, further study will do the same.

Also, it could be for the sake of argument that the Bible is not the Word of God and there is no justification for some of these things. This is not my stance, but it's a possible stance. So what? There are Christians who do have this view and do believe that there is still enough evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The idea that the Bible must be Inerrant in all that it teaches in order to be true in anything is a fundamentalist idea. It is that for both fundy atheists and fundy Christians. Keep in mind I do hold to Inerrancy, but if Inerrancy is wrong, I'm not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Outrage is just outrage. Being angered about something does not make it wrong. Not liking something does not make it wrong. For that, you actually need to dialogue and seek to understand the situation. Christians in dialogue should realize that if an atheist just wants to rant about something and not dialogue, well that's how it's going to be, and while that aspect can't be changed about them unless they want to, one can usually sit back and explain everything and trust the audience watching sees which side is presenting the more rational presentation.

Yet doesn't it seem odd that those who claim to rely so much on reason consistently have an appeal to emotion with a conclusion that does not follow?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

[Leonhard]

Thinking with ones belly doesn't have a good track record. That I agree completely with.

However your case is weakened a bit by you admitting in the post that arguments from evil (presumable based on outrageous things) could in principle weaken the Christian case, by sowing legitimate doubt about biblical inerrancy, which is an almost universally held belief amongst evangelicals. Its you who, I think, argued that God is that which is the most desirable. Therefore all his actions can only be the most supreme good. If then the actions documented of God in the Bible are atrocious and less than the ultimate good, then there's reasons to at least think that those actions didn't occur, or that Christianity isn't describing the right God. Most of our moral decision making comes from intuitions about what to do. So if a person feels moral outrage, at the very least he can demand an explanation of why that outrage is wrong guided. I reject the idea that the Christian should just stomp their foot and claim in presuppositional apologetic circular fashion "Well God is good so whatever God does is good, therefore God hasn't done anything less than perfect goodness".

But I agree that these arguments can be rather empty if they're not properly formulated. It needs to be tied to such questions as "How do we know what is good?". Remember the atheist doesn't have to accept any kind of ontology of morality. Its enough that he adopts the metaphysics of a Christian and show how it leads to conflicts. If one can show that from God is less than the most desirable entity in the world (by reference to outrageous atrocity) and that he is the most desirable entity in the world (from classical scholastic theology). Then, since impossible things can't exist, God can't exist. Or of course, the atrocities didn't exist (errant bible, or misinterpreted bible).

Personally I think there's at least some doubts about whether the Canaanite massacres ever took place (to any large extent). That's sufficient to take away the worst example. Though I'm sure the God of Christianity is quite out of the woods.

Unfortunately (in this respect) the New Atheists tend to draw from the scientific crowd. And scientists have become enormously skeptical of philosophers. In our eyes philosophers are scientists with clean hands and a comfy armchair, discussing a reality they wouldn't dare touch with a prong; Word babble, sophistry, mind games, empty metaphysical nonsense and puzzlery. No actual content, no firm data, nothing solid. Just a sea of ever diverging opinions about everything couched in sophisticated speak. Right now in my country its fashionable to claim that science is just a socially constructed fiction (Foucault is very popular). Personally I wouldn't trust your typical philosopher to tell me if it was raining outside, much less if it ought to be raining. However there's a good naturalism crowd, that Christian apologists seem hardly aware of. You guys still talking as if Dawkin's was the the end all be all of arguments made in favor of atheism.

Eventually I hope the new atheists will unite with the atheist crowd among the philosophers and that proper naturalism will become popular again*. At least I'd like to see more people who wouldn't embarrass themselves in front of a debate master like Craig. There's only been a couple so far. Its really a shame because a lot Christian apologists are getting lazy. No offense Nick.

*Why is it that philosophies are like fads? Do right ideas become boring over time????!!!!

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Thinking with ones belly doesn't have a good track record. That I agree completely with.

However your case is weakened a bit by you admitting in the post that arguments from evil (presumable based on outrageous things) could in principle weaken the Christian case, by sowing legitimate doubt about biblical inerrancy, which is an almost universally held belief amongst evangelicals. Its you who, I think, argued that God is that which is the most desirable. Therefore all his actions can only be the most supreme good.

Reply: I'd like to see this last part demonstrated.

If then the actions documented of God in the Bible are atrocious and less than the ultimate good, then there's reasons to at least think that those actions didn't occur, or that Christianity isn't describing the right God.

If they are atrocious. That has yet to be shown.

Most of our moral decision making comes from intuitions about what to do. So if a person feels moral outrage, at the very least he can demand an explanation of why that outrage is wrong guided. I reject the idea that the Christian should just stomp their foot and claim in presuppositional apologetic circular fashion "Well God is good so whatever God does is good, therefore God hasn't done anything less than perfect goodness".

I agree with the conclusion, but I don't accept it as a presupposition. There is nothing wrong with asking why God does X. There is something wrong with assuming because God does something I don't like, that he's wrong.

[QUOTE But I agree that these arguments can be rather empty if they're not properly formulated. It needs to be tied to such questions as "How do we know what is good?". Remember the atheist doesn't have to accept any kind of ontology of morality. Its enough that he adopts the metaphysics of a Christian and show how it leads to conflicts. If one can show that from God is less than the most desirable entity in the world (by reference to outrageous atrocity) and that he is the most desirable entity in the world (from classical scholastic theology). Then, since impossible things can't exist, God can't exist. Or of course, the atrocities didn't exist (errant bible, or misinterpreted bible). [/QUOTE]

And that would be quite a lot to show. For one thing, the person would have to know the reasons for the actions and what was going on and have to show that God has no say whatsoever in how long someone lives or taking a life. I'm not even sure what it means to ask if God is moral nowadays.

Personally I think there's at least some doubts about whether the Canaanite massacres ever took place (to any large extent). That's sufficient to take away the worst example. Though I'm sure the God of Christianity is quite out of the woods.

It's my stance that they did, but we can save that for discussion.

Unfortunately (in this respect) the New Atheists tend to draw from the scientific crowd. And scientists have become enormously skeptical of philosophers. In our eyes philosophers are scientists with clean hands and a comfy armchair, discussing a reality they wouldn't dare touch with a prong; Word babble, sophistry, mind games, empty metaphysical nonsense and puzzlery. No actual content, no firm data, nothing solid. Just a sea of ever diverging opinions about everything couched in sophisticated speak.

I see too many scientists meanwhile as rebellious teenagers living in their parents' house depending on them for all they do and then treating them like they don't matter. Not all of them of course, but a lot of them, particularly new atheist ones.

Right now in my country its fashionable to claim that science is just a socially constructed fiction (Foucault is very popular). Personally I wouldn't trust your typical philosopher to tell me if it was raining outside, much less if it ought to be raining. However there's a good naturalism crowd, that Christian apologists seem hardly aware of. You guys still talking as if Dawkin's was the the end all be all of arguments made in favor of atheism.

No. There are far better. Dawkins is just the main one people are listening to now and I focus on him also since he's to be at the Rally.

[QUOTE] Eventually I hope the new atheists will unite with the atheist crowd among the philosophers and that proper naturalism will become popular again*. At least I'd like to see more people who wouldn't embarrass themselves in front of a debate master like Craig. There's only been a couple so far. Its really a shame because a lot Christian apologists are getting lazy. No offense Nick. [/QUOTE}

I know a lot are and I know I can be guilty at times, but I suppose we all are. I do agree Craig is a debate master, but I don't agree with him on everything which too many atheists seem to assume. I think the new atheists would greatly benefit themselves by uniting with a good philosophy crowd.