Resolved: All but the nihilist shares an operative form of faith.

This debate is about the meaning of the words "faith," and now about the meaning of "morality." The moral nihilist believes that moral questions have no meaning. Thus asking "Is that action good or evil?" makes no more sense than asking "Is that rock happy or sad?" I think that most moral questions have meaning. Asking "Is that action good or bad?" amounts to asking "Is that action in accord the normal behavior of the human species?" In geek-speak, that question is, "Is that person's genetically coded software operating to the specifications for the species?" The human species survived by evolving and following instincts, so survival is the fundamental motivating force. I will use an extreme example to explain. Suppose we are contracted to draw up a moral code for the species of praying mantis. (An unusually intelligent mantis made a fortune trading commodities and awarded us the contract, you see.) It is normal behavior for a female praying mantis to eat the male after mating. This supposedly supports the survival of the species by recycling protein for the next generation of offspring. It is part of the species' genetic programming that provides long-term survival. By my definition of morality, a female praying mantis that then fails to make lunch of her mate is committing a morally bad act. "Bad" means "not in conformance with normal genetic programming" and nothing more than that. Our moral code for the species would require mate consumption. Codfish characteristically eat their offspring. Male bears sometimes kill their offspring. Clearly we would not be able to make any moral rules derived solely from logic. The nature of the beast is inherently linked. I think that Pro finds a mundane definition of morality unsatisfactory. He feels, I gather, that such a meaning is logically unenforceable. He says, "A "leap [of faith]" is required because logic alone cannot take us to a point where we can say human life is precious, indeed sacred, even when all of our genetic impulses are urging us to obey the authority figure and turn the dial up one more notch." Pro insists, it seems, that there must be an absolute morality that holds human life precious above all else, and that atheists and theists both get to that morality through faith not logic. First of all, there is no common belief that life is precious beyond all else. The idea that life is "sacred" is a religious one, not shared by atheists. For nearly everyone, principles of self-defense hold it moral to kill another human for protection of one's self, family, or tribe. All of our genetic impulses are not telling us to obey authority. The instinct to obey authority may be supported by a tribal instinct, but in the modern world people subscribe to multiple tribes and the various allegiances conflict. Moreover, obeying authority may be a rational decision to defer one's personal judgment to someone who is more qualified. If a person wrongly identifies the qualifications of the supposed authority, that may lead to bad results, but if one systematically denies credentialed authority (like refusing to follow a physicians advice) that too may produce a bad outcome. Situations arise that are full of moral conflicts. That is consistent with my my definition of morality, because human instincts are allowed to conflict, and we then attempt to reason out the most satisfactory resolution of the conflicts. The self-preservation instinct usually takes precedence over other instincts, but sometimes the family or tribe is put first. Instincts support survival of the species because they work most of the time, not because they resolve every situation perfectly. It suffices that 90%, or whatever, of situations have a clear right and wrong, and that the borderline cases are in doubt. Morality is clearly defined in most cases, but not in all. Pro's is wrong that a leap of faith is done by everyone to take us to the conclusion that "humanity matters" or any other moral principle. It does not happen that way. Pro uses the phrase "humanity matters" as the destination of the supposed leap of faith. He claims that no logical derivation can reach such a conclusion. Perhaps there is some abstract level of logic at which that is true. If an errant supercomputer took over the world, it would not have any values beyond what it was programmed to have. If it had no values programmed into it, it would act randomly and never derive a value structure. So while it is true that values cannot be derived from nothing, but we should not care about that. We care about the values of the human species, and those are derived from human nature. The reason that "humanity matters" is that we are programmed for it to matter. There is no logical derivation beyond that, and there is no reason to demand that there be one. It isn't a leap of faith that takes us to the conclusion the humanity matters, it is introspective and observed human nature. Pro claims that the theist makes a leap of faith to get to the "sacred" nature of human life, or at least to the conclusion that humanity matters. But obviously, the religious leap of faith may take one to other places instead. Ancient Aztecs and ancient Hawaiians practiced human sacrifice to please imaginary gods. The ancient Hawaiians had hundreds of trivial crimes punishable by death, including a commoner possessing a yellow object, yellow being reserved for royalty. The ancient Hawaiian religion was overthrown by a Queen who came to her senses about such barbaric practices -- before Christian missionaries arrived. the self-evident nature of mankind trumped divine faith as it should have. Over time, there are fewer and fewer outrageously immoral religions. Christianity once supported slavery and the divine right of kings. Now it opposes those principles. Did the Bible change? Did the Gods change? I attribute the changes to social evolution: the Christians changed. Over time, people have better understood the nature of mankind and tuned their religious institutions in accordance with the better understanding. Trial and error determined the rules of morality that work best for society. The process is ongoing. Religion did not make a leap of faith to positing morality. Religion discovered morality in the same way that atheists discovered it, by evolving society to better conform to human nature. Religion chooses to claim that their gods gave them morality, but if that were true they would have gotten it right at the start of the religion, and every religion would have had the same morality at the outset. That didn't happen; the human institutions evolved. Summarizing: 1. Morality derives from the nature of mankind. 2. Religions derive morality from human nature, then claim that whatever they are doing was derived from religious faith. 3. Atheists and theists end up with similar moral principles because both derive them the same way, albeit imperfectly. 4. Therefore no leap of faith is required by atheists, nor do atheists make a leap of faith. The resolution is negated.