Atheism is Morally Bankrupt

The first two-thirds of his response are correct in that I was not sufficiently clear. That does not mean that my argument is false, but is lacking in clarity which in turn renders it difficult to follow and judge. I must confess I was probably too greedy to provide evidences for my premises than in defining terms. This statement in Con"s conclusion: "However, Pro has not adequately presented a case that would establish the above proposition: "Atheism is morally bankrupt. "" I believe should be slightly reworded. I believe my point to be adequate, but my terms have not been clearly delineated. Let me first define the terms at hand: I will use the Merriram-Webster dictionary definitions were possible. Atheism: the doctrine that there is no deity. [1] Theism: belief in the existence of a god or gods; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world. [2] Emphasis will be placed on the secondary definition. Conventional Morality: This term I will have to define myself. By conventional morality I mean the moral tradition that we inherit from the Greeks and the Jews as western man, or as C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man calls Tao. Lewis defines the Tao as: "the traditional moralities of East and West, the Christian, the Pagan, and the Jew. " [3] This is attested to in Romans 2:14-16. Evil: Will be defined as violation of the Tao. Nihilism: a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths. [4] Response to (ii) Con is essentially correct in his appraisal of my central claim: "[I]f God is dead, then morality that derives from God, which is all morality, is without foundation and must be rejected. " This claim is clearly affirmed by Marquis de Sade, Nietzsche, and Max Striner explicitly and Lenin and Margaret Sanger, at least in the quotes mentioned implicitly. I content that nihilism is the only consistent morality of atheism. I contend that moral atheism cannot exist. Response to (iii) While Con has correctly identified my argument to be that atheism denies the ontological foundation for morality he has drawn a mistaken inference from my syllogism. This could be due to 1) I was not clear enough in my syllogism or 2) he is genuinely mistaken. The two are probably related a more clear definition would have given Con better material to work with. My claim is not that "atheists cannot know what is moral because they lack revelation. ", but that they cannot from their own philosophy justify the moral truths they claim to support. I do not believe that I am committing the genetic fallacy, which is defined as describing the origin of a belief and then acting as if that explanation falsifies the belief. I made no attempt to describe the origin of atheist belief in morality and then act as if that explanation rendered it false. So I contend that Con is incorrect in ascribing to me the genetic fallacy. I want to return to Nietzsche"s claim in Twilight of the Idols that Christian morality is not at all obvious to all men and that Christianity is a package deal God and His morality come together or as Bill Clinton said about his presidency it is a twofer. One cannot hold God"s morality and yet reject the idea that God exists. Con is mistaken in his definition of the fallacy (Appeal to Authority). The fallacy appeal to authority is an appeal to an illegitimate authority. As Peter Kreeft states: "Ad verecundiam" means "the appeal to reverence," i. e. reverence for authority. The fallacy is the illegitimate appeal to authority" Appeal to authority is not in itself fallacious" In fact, most of what we know, we have learned by trusting authorities: first of our parents, then our teachers and textbooks. No one can learn everything first-hand; most of what we know comes to us second-hand, with many other human links in the chain. [5] If we accept Con"s definition of Appeal to Authority certain absurdities arise. His response itself is based on appeals to authority. If Con accepts his own definition of the Appeal to Authority much of what he has already written has not added substance to his argument. From this contradiction I suggest that he has wrongly defined the Appeal to Authority. I suggest that Marquis de Sade, Nietzsche and Max Stirner are not illegitimate authorities on the possibility of atheist morality, but very relevant sources. My purpose in using the quotes of prominent atheists to support the claim that atheism cannot ground morality is just to show that even thoughtful (dare I call Marquis de Sade thoughtful? ) atheists have come to the same realization that I am arguing for. The driving assumption of my argument is that atheists must smuggle into their own world view implicit Christian assumptions to justify their morality which they cannot do and maintain a claim to logical consistency. The atheist is self-assumptively incoherent he 1) denies that God and universals exist, but 2) accepts the moral dictums that flow from God and universals. Roy Clouser defines self-assumptive incoherence thus: "The next criterion says that a theory must not be incompatible with any belief we have to assume for the theory to be true. " [6] The atheist must implicitly assume what he denies, i. e. , the existent of universal truth (God, the gods or Platonic forms). In short the atheist is as Nietszche and Max Stirner state still living as if God were real while denying his existence. One is not allowed to posit meaning in the universe when one"s world view by definition denies the existence of objective meaning. Response to (iv) Con claims that "objective morality" can either be justified by supernatural or natural sources. He claims that I need to show that natural foundations are invalid and then that supernatural foundations are valid. I only accept part of his suggestion. My claim is that 1) atheism cannot justify morality (which implies a naturalistic justification) and 2) the atheist cannot smuggle in values and ideas that violate the very notion of atheism. I need not prove that Christians or theists can give a better account of morality to show that an atheist cannot give an account of morality. Con cites Louise Antony and her argument that: "we as human beings have evolved in such a way so as to develop brains and nervous systems that support a psychology. " Now we have here a genuine genetic fallacy Mrs. Antony is giving a description of how our faculties might have developed and then concludes that the moral concepts generated by these evolutionary and cultural forces are true. Normally the genetic fallacy is used to prove something false, not true. It is unclear what Mrs. Antony is trying to achieve here, is she saying 1) from biological sources moral norms are created, or 2) that one can give an account of the existence of the moral norms we already have. She cannot mean (1) since that would be self-assumptively incoherent, given her atheist world view. The second is again merely an expression of the genetic fallacy. Furthermore if we accept (2) we also see that what she is describing cannot actually ground objective morality. For something to be normative it must be true at all times and places. The laws of logic for example are always true: A does not equal non-A is true irrespective of time, place, gender or race. If something is generated by a process (i. e. , evolution) it cannot and is not universal. Before sufficiently evolved life existed than these moral laws could have been operative or even in existence. If Mrs. Antony wants to appeal to some independent universal law governing morality that evolution is merely leading us to, then she is smuggling in God through the back door, for what else could such a grounding for morality be that is independent of existing beings, but an eternal immaterial source? Response to (v) I believe I have adequately answered his objections to my argument and clarified the terms under discussion. Con has failed to: 1)Define fallacies correctly. 2)As a result of (1) he has ignored the claims of Marquis de Sade, Max Stirner and Nietzsche and the arguments they give for the inoperableness of moral norms, in a materialist world view. 3)Grapple with the implication that if God does not exist anything is permitted, or as Marquis de Sade argued immorality become a duty. 4)Show that atheists are not self-assumptively incoherent. 5) Show that if man is an animal that moral laws still apply to him when such laws clearly do not apply to dogs, cats and horses. 6)Show that a world view that explicitly denies objective morals can still have an account of objective morality. I do not see that he has adequately shown that atheism can be adequately grounded within its own conceptual superstructure without smuggling in foreign ideas and that once God is "killed" acts which were formerly considered evil subsequently are now considered permissible. I conclude that the vote should be in the affirmative that Atheism is Morally Bankrupt. Notes [1] . http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] . http://www.merriam-webster.com... [3] C. S. Lewis, Abolition of Man (HarperCollins Edition 2001) page 44-45 [4] . http://www.merriam-webster.com... [5] Peter Kreeft, Socratic Logic: A Logic text using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions and Aristotelian Principles (St. Augustine"s Press 2010) page 82 [6] Roy A. Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality (University of Notre Dame 2013) page 84