THE REAL FINAL POST! 1 of more than 1.
"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."---Adolf Hitler.
Please keep that quote in mind, dear reader, I'll mention it later. Firstly, I'd like to thank you for reading this far...especially after Dave's last post. It got pretty ugly pretty fast didn't it?? "Gay Bowel Syndrome"? Is that a medical term Dave? Seriously, I'd like to apologize for that dear reader...I feel partly responsible. Remember when I said that Dave would be trapped in this debate and unable to avoid the truth? Well, that's what it looks like sometimes. Like a dying animal in a trap, Dave began flailing around, spewing all the hatred and ugliness that he could, hoping that some of it would stick. A clear act of desperation.
I'll admit, I had expected something different. I thought Dave would try to raise some new points to validate his premise, but he hasn't. He rewrote a couple of his arguments, but since his arguments don't hold up to scrutiny, he's decided to attack atheism, materialism, and moral relativism in the hopes that you, dear reader, won't notice he's failed to prove his point. It's not my job here to defend any of those things...to win this debate I just have to show you how Dave is wrong. Since that won't take long, and I have to make something of this post, here's what I'll do.
I'll recap Dave's position and include his premises. I'll explain why the arguments he chose to validate his premises are entirely wrong and leave his premises unfounded. Then, as a special treat just for you dear reader...I'll explain what morality isn't...and finish with what it is. I'll even try to end it all on a positive note to counter all that negativity coming from Dave and his views. Let's begin, shall we?
Dave's premises are quite simple...as they should be. After all, it's based on a view of morality that is childlike, a view of morality that most of us once held. Our brains look for patterns, they try to make sense of random and complex things. Morality isn't quite so simple though, and this view is incorrect. His premises are....
1. Morality comes from god.
2. God inscribed this morality on each and every person.
3. Dave knows this because he knows your thoughts and feelings (and everyone else's too).
Number one is fairly simple, but Dave hasn't provided any evidence for it. He has suggested that it's the only reasonable possibility. I say that Dave lacks imagination. I can imagine hundreds of ways that morality came about...as long as I don't have to provide any evidence for them. Since Dave didn't provide any evidence for morality coming from god, anything I imagine would logically be just as possible. That's not a strong premise...in fact, without evidence it's entirely worthless.
Premise number 2 is a bit tricky. Saying that god inscribed the same sense of morals on each and every person is easy...proving it is impossible. The only way Dave can prove it is with premise number 3. Dave needs magical mind-reading powers to prove his view of morality true. Why? Because if god gave us all his sense of morality...the same sense of morality...then we would all have to feel the same about every moral situation. This is obviously not the situation. People disagree on what is morally good and bad all the time, in fact, I sincerely doubt that any two people agree entirely on every moral situation...let alone everyone in the world throughout all time agreeing. The only way Dave can get around this fact is whenever someone claims to feel differently than Dave on what is morally good or bad is for him to say, "Well that person is just denying/suppressing/lying about what they know is true". Clearly, dear reader, I don't have to explain to you why this isn't true. It would be an insult to your intelligence to explain to you why Dave can't read minds. As you can see I wasn't exaggerating earlier when I said Dave was trapped. He's trapped inside a bad argument, a false premise, an untrue belief. Hey, since I said this would happen to him in the first post...maybe I have magical mind-reading powers! Spooky! Anyways, since Dave tried to make arguments to validate his second premise...I'll go ahead and explain why they fail...even though at this point I really don't need to.
Dave started out with a bad example about how you feel about Nazis, dear reader. I showed that not everyone feels the same about Nazis. He then tried to confuse you, reader, by claiming that I was talking about what "IS" in other words...I was talking about what people do feel. He then claimed the discussion was about what people "OUGHT" to feel. This is just a cheap tactic to try and confuse you, dear reader, and win some points for his argument. Make no mistake, we are talking about what morality IS not what it OUGHT to be. This whole debate is about what morality is...not what it ought to be. IS morality based upon a set of laws inscribed in the heart of every man? Or IS it not? What morality OUGHT to be is an entirely different discussion...one I might even take a different position on. I don't know, I've never really considered it. The point is that everyone does not feel the same about what is morally good or bad...this is clear to anyone who has had a discussion on what is good or bad in a given situation. That leaves this attempt by Dave to validate premise number 2 a failure...unless, of course, you believe Dave can read minds
Dave's second argument was that we all feel the same whenever we someone does something immoral to us...every time, in every situation. This was demonstrated false when I showed that there are things of such little value to us that we simply don't feel any moral outrage when they are stolen from us. If Dave's argument were true, we would. I don't feel any moral outrage when a French fry is stolen from me...I'm willing to bet that many of you, dear readers, don't either. That means that often times, the outrage we feel is from the loss of something of value to us. Sometimes we may also feel outrage at being stolen from...but not every time, not in every situation. Again, it's pretty obvious that this attempt by Dave to validate his second premise is also a failure...unless of course, you believe Dave can read your mind.
Dave's third argument was changed a little this time around. He originally claimed that we all feel the same whenever we break one of the moral laws god inscribed on our hearts. His example was that a person facing trial for a crime tries to argue for his defense. I explained that trying to avoid going to jail or being executed is simply in our best interests. Dave must've realized this was a poor argument on his behalf...so he tried to alter it in his last post here. Now he's claiming that every culture, every race, every society always includes the same basic laws based upon this sense of morality handed to us by god. This is also demonstrably false...and anyone with even a minor interest in history knows this isn't true. The Aztecs were big fans of murdering innocents, the emperor's catamites in ancient Rome were a stellar example of institutional child rape, the infamous Spanish inquisition was a study in institutional torture, and my favorite example...slavery...has fallen in and out of popularity through most cultures and societies throughout time. If Dave's argument were true...I wouldn't even have these examples to give you dear reader. So you see...this argument too, fails to support his second premise in any way. Unless, you know, you believe Dave can read minds (and in this case, time-travel!).
So, to summarize, Dave never provided any evidence that his god created morality. Maybe that was his strategy, since without evidence I've got nothing to disprove. However, this premise is literally no better than any other bare assertion. I can claim that morality came from magical inter-dimensional unicorns...what would you say to that dear reader? Hopefully, you'd say, "Prove it...show me the evidence."...and you would be right to do so. I asked Dave for evidence of this premise more than once...he never provided any. Instead, Dave tried to smear atheism, materialism, and relativism...which even if they were wrong, would not prove that morality comes from god. Premise 1 is busted.
Dave's second premise is that god inscribed the same unchanging morals on everyone's heart. The trotted out a few meager arguments in support of this. I just explained to you, dear reader, why each of these is wrong. Premise number 2 is busted.
Dave's third premise is so silly it doesn't need me to address it at all except to say this....Dave can't read your mind. Premise 3 is busted.
Now I know you're probably wondering when I'm going to address all that stuff...that horrible horrible stuff...that Dave said about atheism, materialism, and relativism. Why should I? Even if he were right about all of that, and he isn't, but even if he were....it wouldn't support his view of morality. We are talking about what morality is. If Dave's view of morality was correct...he should've been able to provide sound, reasonable arguments that support his view. He couldn't...so he railed against everything he disagrees with. Well, he isn't right about atheism...that's nothing more than disbelief in god. He isn't right about moral relativism, as I'll show you in the second part of this post. I also strongly doubt he's correct about materialism, even though I don't know much about it. I mean, what are the chances? He's wrong about atheism, he's wrong about relativism, he's even wrong about his own views of absolute morality...what are the chances he's right about materialism? What's more is that for all the evil and corruption and degradation he claims is inherent in my beliefs about morality...look at what his views have wrought. He's a man who believes he's surrounded by evil, he sees society in decline, he judges and hates and judges some more. I'll expand on that in my next and final post...and I promise to end it on a positive note...stay with me just a little longer, dear reader, and be unafraid!