Materialists Know What They Say is False. They Say it Anyway

_{Barry Arrington
January 21, 2022

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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Otherwise, they would have to give up their materialism.

Recently I posted about a woman who was charged with attempted murder when she put a newborn baby in a garbage bag and tossed him in a dumpster to die. Here is an exchange I had with Seversky regarding that post:

Barry:

Is it objectively evil to put a baby in a garbage bag and throw him in a dumpster or is it just your subjective preference not to do so?

Seversky:

the overwhelming majority regard dumping newborns in dumpsters as being evil

Barry:

Suppose the overwhelming majority regarded dumping newborns in dumpsters as good. Would it then be good?

Seversky:

Presumably, it would be good in the minds of the majority who approved of it. It would not be a good thing from my perspective.

There you have it. Sev’s position is this: They would prefer tossing babies in dumpsters and I would not. There is no basis on which to determine which preference is superior. Therefore, the preferences are objectively equal.

As I have said before, no sane person actually lives their life as if materialism is true. But Sev’s religious commitments compel him to pretend he believes it is true. Which leads him to say that he holds an outrageous position that we can be certain he does not truly hold. Sad that.

Comments

Viola Lee I can’t believe that a God of this huge universe would take such a monstrously petty position about human beings.
What is so monstrous in God Himself dying for you NOT to go to hell but somehow this is not enough for you( such a perfect and moral person ) . Guess what? It's not God ,it's you.Lieutenant Commander Data_{January 23, 2022
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BTW, the argument that God has the exact limitations to His creative capacity that would make "eternal torment" a "good" thing, or a necessary aspect of the best possible outcome, is entirely the product of circular reasoning. It is achieved solely from the premise that the actual God, that is actually kind, loving, merciful and just, actually created hell. So, the existence of hell must be justified; they must imagine what qualities, what nature, what limitations God must have in order for hell to be logically justifiable from such a God. And, they need hundreds of years of convenient, circular reasoning and encyclopedic volumes of argument in the attempt to make this case. All of that, just to be able to intellectually deny that which their own heart knows is true.William J Murray_{January 23, 2022
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In the hypothetical ontology some are presenting here, God is running an eternal concentration camp that puts the Nazi camps to shame, and these people are trying to justify it through logic and reasoning. That's every bit as bad as Sev trying to justify as "not evil" something that is clearly evil as long as the person doesn't believe it to be an evil. I assume that, throughout history, there have been people who had what they thought were convincing logical arguments to justify the evils they committed. Or, they had deeply felt religious convictions that compelled them to do evil things and justify it on grounds of their faith. This exactly what we have going on here; people trying to justify, one way or another, an obvious evil. Stephen is so twisted he argues that we deliberately run into those camps knowing full well what we're doing, and would choose to stay there even if given the opportunity to leave even after we have a taste of what eternal torment will be. Know what else is patently obvious? When you need an encyclopedia's worth of content to develop the apologetic reasoning that is needed to justify something as "not evil," it is clear you are dealing with so obvious an evil that it requires all of that in the attempt to justify it as "not evil." You don't need complicated arguments to convince people that obvious evils are evil; you only need complicated arguments if you're attempting to convince normal, reasonable people that an obvious evil is not in fact evil. But, it's even worse than that; these people are trying to portray the creator of that horrifying, eternal concentration camp as kind, loving, merciful and just. Eternal torment is so very much worse, and more evil, than "tossing a baby into the garbage" that it's obscene to even compare the two. Eternal torment is not just evil; it is the worst possible evil that can be committed by anyone on anyone. It is the absolute antithesis of being kind, loving, merciful or just. It's the most purely evil thing imaginable. But by all means, go ahead with your "arguments" that we just don't understand how it is really a "good" thing that a kind, loving, merciful and just God created. Go ahead and tell us how we are "mischaracterizing" the situation. Go ahead and refer us to volumes of apologetics and reasoning that would attempt to justify it. It is, indeed, quite the sight to behold.William J Murray_{January 23, 2022
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Es58:
Monstrously petty? Is there no crime sufficiently monstrously evil to earn such an outcome?
Of course there is no crime that warrants eternal, hopeless torment. We all know this. It's not even a difficult calculation. It's preposterous on the face of it.William J Murray_{January 23, 2022
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@Viola Lee:
Posts 29 is the kind of rationalization and story-telling that drove me away from religious belief.
I've seen it in my loving grandmother. She always assumed I was a christian. After I had told her that I wasn't, she entered a state of cognitive dissonance and denial (like Seversky). She couldn't believe her grandson would suffer in hell for eternity and she would never see him again. So she invented a falsehood in her mind: namely that I was just joking about not being a christian. I let her believe the falsehood, because it made her happy.AndyClue_{January 22, 2022
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PPS, if you are tempted to substitute computation on a wetware, neuron based substrate for the rational, responsible freedom of a living, self-moved soul inherently distinct as to order of being from a dynamic-stochatic computational device composed of atoms and molecules, may I remind of the exchange between the late Sir Francis Crick and the late Philip Johnson:
Some materialists actually suggest that mind is more or less a delusion, which is instantly self-referentially absurd. For instance, Sir Francis Crick is on record, in his 1994 The Astonishing Hypothesis:
. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
The late Philip Johnson has aptly replied that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Johnson then acidly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.] In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin. For, there is a very good reason we are cautioned about how easily self-referential statements can become self-refuting, like a snake attacking and swallowing itself tail-first. Any human scheme of thought that undermines responsible [thus, morally governed] rational freedom undermines itself fatally. We thus see inadvertent, inherent self-falsification of evolutionary materialism. But, “inadvertent” counts: it can be hard to recognise and acknowledge the logically fatal nature of the result. Of course, that subjective challenge does not change the objective result: self-referential incoherence and irretrievable self-falsification. (An audio clip, here, by William Lane Craig that summarises Plantinga's argument on this in a nutshell, is useful as a quick reference.)
kairosfocus_{January 22, 2022
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PPS: I think I should add this, from an equally foundational text of the Christian gospel, regarding God's attitude to our responsiveness to the degree of light we have or have reasonable access to:
Rom 2: 6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality . . . . 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles [members of the diverse peoples of the world, ethnoi], who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Notice, "to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life." In short, even stumbling persistence in the path of the truth counts, ultimately counts.kairosfocus_{January 22, 2022
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VL, you have framed the issue in a loaded fashion, complete with loaded words that implicitly caricature and dismiss out of hand rather than on merits. What if the criterion of judgement of a soul is responsiveness/unresponsiveness to truth one knows or should acknowledge? What if, "this is the verdict, that men loved darkness instead of light, as their deeds were evil"? What if, "s/he who lives by the truth will come to the light"? As to degree of light one has or has access to, start with the built in voice of conscience as testifying to our moral government; manifested in even the implicit appeals you have made to several first duties of reason; showing their branch on which we sit first principle truths character. Then, ask yourself where that fundamental knowable law that governs our duty to right conduct etc so too our responsible, rational freedom can come from. See if, post Hume and post Euthyphro, is can come from anywhere but the necessary being root of reality as being able to source the is-ness of a world, with creatures exhibiting rational, responsible freedom that requires sound guidance. Then see if that does not require that such not only have capability to be a wellspring of worlds, but also to be inherently good and utterly wise, so able to found moral government. Of course, such then addresses the nature, path and final state of the soul, which as an inherently unitary entity is not a composite of parts so once it is, it cannot be broken up, it is immortal. Much more can be said, I will just append the testimony of an eyewitness, facing judicial murder at hands of Nero, on a patently false accusation of treasonous arson c 65 AD. Your dismissiveness to this testimony and its context, regrettably, speaks. I trust you and others will reconsider. KF PS: The testimony of the man who was there, Simon Peter, late fisherman of Galilee:
2 Peter 1: 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. . . . 19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. [See, Isa 52:13 - 53:12, c 700 BC] 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Much, much more can be said, but this is a marker.kairosfocus_{January 22, 2022
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Monstrously petty? Is there no crime sufficiently monstrously evil to earn such an outcome?es58_{January 22, 2022
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Posts 29 is the kind of rationalization and story-telling that drove me away from religious belief. I'm with WJM on this discussion: there is no possible justification for believing that someone (me, for instance) is damned to eternal torment because I don't belief in Christianity, and Jesus in particular. I can't believe that a God of this huge universe would take such a monstrously petty position about human beings.Viola Lee_{January 22, 2022
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He washed my sins away --Ramram_{January 22, 2022
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WJM:
The OP is about saying something that is false while knowing it is false, wrt things that are clearly, unmistakably evil, because one is trying to salvage an untenable perspective. I’ve pointed my finger at something that is clearly, unmistakably evil. It is also clearly, unmistakably unjust.
Apples and Oranges. Your assumption that It is “clearly and unmistakably unjust” for God to punish unrepentant sinners is flawed. The self-evident truths that Barry writes about refer to the Natural Moral Law, which pertain to humans and the morality of human nature. The fact is that there are certain moral acts that God can perform which would be immoral if initiated by a human agent. A good example would be the act of judging itself. Human’s may not judge the ultimate fate of other humans (or decide on which fate is deserved) because they simply don’t know all the facts and nuances of each human life. Many there are, for example, that have a hard time loving God as a Father because their fathers did not love them. God can take such things into account, humans cannot. It is also the case that eternal punishment can be justified on several grounds, including the problem of eternal guilt incurred by an eternal attachment to sin. It is by no means self evident that God is morally obliged to refrain from creating humans with free will because He knows that some of them will abuse the privilege. Self-evident moral truths apply only to human duties and obligations. One may not logically use the same standard to appraise God’s moral decisions. God may, for example, take a human life for some good reason, and He has the moral right to do so because He is the author of life. The broader point is that neither you or anyone else is qualified to judge God because you cannot possibly know all the reasons for his decisions.StephenB_{January 22, 2022
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Define evil, WJM. I'm not avoiding anything. You measure evil by what you think is evil, just like the pedophile does (no, I'm not conflating the two). I think sin is evil. I think God is holy. Sinning against my brother isn't the same as sinning against the president. We have no idea the holiness of God. My answer is that God is not evil. I am evil. I am responsible for my actions, not God. He set up the rules because he made everything. I broke them because I wanted to do my own thing. So did you. Now, I answered the way I see it, which won't appease you. ---- Sev, you completely dodged the experiment. If universalism is true, would you repent of your sins, and follow Christ all out? WJM, how about you? Anyone else who isn't a Christian, would you?zweston_{January 22, 2022
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Dogs? Your position can't even account for the existence of dogs!ET_{January 22, 2022
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Zweston @ 23 I'm guessing that universalism (or annihilationism) would be anathema to most folks that follow this blog. Their instinct to mercilessly kick the dog is too over-powering, especially, as this thread demonstrates, when they can do their kicking from a position of perceived moral superiority...chuckdarwin_{January 22, 2022
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Zweston @23: Are you avoiding answering the question? Or, is this your way of refusing to admit that a clear, obvious evil is in fact evil?William J Murray_{January 22, 2022
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(previous comment directed at WJM, but feel free to jump in any non-christians out there)zweston_{January 22, 2022
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Lets do a thought experiment...which I haven't ever used.... There are some people holding to the Bible who say that God will eventually save everyone (universalism). That after death, people will realize their failures and ultimately be restored to God. If the Bible said that, would you be a Christian... meaning: You would repent of your current lifestyle, renounce sin, and follow Jesus wholeheartedly and dedicate your life to seeing others do the same?zweston_{January 22, 2022
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Zweston said:
WJM… you still appeal to morality without a standard, and continually dismiss it.
The standard is exactly the same standard Mr. Arrington used in his OP and which KF has repeatedly used in his arguments: some things we know to be evil when we see or think of them regardless of our personal beliefs. The only question is whether or not you will admit it. I'm perfectly willing to admit that the example Mr. Arrington used is evil regardless of personal beliefs. I'm pointing out another such example. Who here is willing to admit it?William J Murray_{January 22, 2022
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WJM... you still appeal to morality without a standard, and continually dismiss it. You have made world in your own image, because you think you get to be God, just like Adam and Eve, Hitler, and the rest of us... Jesus rose from the dead according to the scriptures and raised again 3 days later according to the scriptures.zweston_{January 22, 2022
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SB said:
You are on record as doubting that there is any such thing as “evil,” “wrong,” or “unjust,” and yet you also claim that the Christian God is evil, wrong, and unjust. Will the real WJM please stand up?
Perhaps you missed them, but I recently made a couple of comments where I said I think I've been able to make the argument that "objective good" and "objective morality" necessarily exist for all possible sentient beings. This happened because I actually do think about these arguments; I tried to squeeze an argument I could understand from KF and you for a while, but I realized that I couldn't understand what you two were saying the way you said them. So I worked on it by myself. The "real" WJM is a person that is willing to make the attempt to make sense out someone else's argument, to try to see things from their perspective, even to make their argument for them to the best of my capacity because none of that threatens my own personal beliefs.William J Murray_{January 22, 2022
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KF said:
On trying to put God in the dock in an attempt to discredit Christian theism,..
I'm making no such attempt. You are engaged in mind reading. The OP is about saying something that is false while knowing it is false, wrt things that are clearly, unmistakably evil, because one is trying to salvage an untenable perspective. I've pointed my finger at something that is clearly, unmistakably evil. It is also clearly, unmistakably unjust. Just as Mr. Arrington points out, and you have repeatedly argued, it doesn't matter what your ontological beliefs are, or what your reasoning is, there are some things which are unmistakably evil even to materialists or moral subjectivists. It is so regardless of anyone's particular theistic perspective. I don't have to reach into ontology or epistemology to know that what I have pointed out is evil. Nobody does. If that happens to indict some aspect of your ideology, that's your problem, not mine. What I have pointed out as evil in my comment above does not even exist in my worldview. This is, in fact, originally why I left Christianity (at least the version taught to me in my childhood;) I knew everlasting, hopeless torment was and evil concept. Since then, I've met hundreds of people that abandoned that version of Christianity for that very same reason: they recognize that one concept as evil. That's not an attempt to discredit Christianity. That's me pointing at an obvious evil and calling it out.William J Murray_{January 22, 2022
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WJM, I have long since, at length at your insistence shown (see also here) why what you proposed fails. On trying to put God in the dock in an attempt to discredit Christian theism, you only succeeded in showing gaps in your reasoning. I suggest, starting with the Incarnation and redemption, where betrayal, deep suffering provides redemption and healing for all. The message of the gospel, core of the Christian faith. A note for record, not an opening for a side track. KF PS: Isaiah 53:
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?1 And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected2 by men; a man of sorrows,3 and acquainted with4 grief;5 and as one from whom men hide their faces6 he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief;7 when his soul makes8 an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see9 and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
kairosfocus_{January 22, 2022
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--> internet out.kairosfocus_{January 22, 2022
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PS, Sev, there is far more objective -- which as long as Math is objective cannot be equated to empirical observation of tangible entities and behaviours etc -- evidence than you acknowledge. For instance, the relativist thesis reduces to absurdity, giving us the epistemic right to accept its denial as true:
Let a proposition be represented by x M = x is a proposition asserting that some state of affairs regarding right conduct, duty/ought, virtue/honour, good/evil etc (i.e. the subject is morality) is the case [--> truth claim] O = x is objective and generally knowable, being adequately warranted as credibly true [--> notice, generally knowable per adequate warrant, as opposed to widely acknowledged] It is claimed, cultural relativism thesis: S= ~[O*M] = 1
[ NB: Plato, The Laws, Bk X, c 360 BC, in the voice of Athenian Stranger: "[Thus, the Sophists and other opinion leaders etc -- c 430 BC on, hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made." This IMPLIES the Cultural Relativism Thesis, by highlighting disputes (among an error-prone and quarrelsome race!), changing/varied opinions, suggesting that dominance of a view in a place/time is a matter of balance of factions/rulings, and denying that there is an intelligible, warranted natural law. Of course, subjectivism then reduces the scale of "community" to one individual. He continues, "These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might . . . " [--> door opened to nihilistic factionalism]]
However, the subject of S is M, it therefore claims to be objectively true, O, and is about M where it forbids O-status to any claim of type-M so, ~[O*M] cannot be true per self referential incoherence [--> reductio ad absurdum] ++++++++++ ~[O*M] = 0 [as self referential and incoherent cf above] ~[~[O*M]] = 1 [the negation is therefore true] __________ O*M = 1 [condensing not of not] where, M [moral truth claim] So too, O [if an AND is true, each sub proposition is separately true] That is, there UNDENIABLY are objective moral truths; and a first, self-evident one is that ~[O*M] is false. The set is non empty, it is not vacuous and we cannot play empty set square of opposition games with it. That’s important.
And of course, I have laid out a case for restoration of recognised moral knowledge here in recent days, making particular reference to Dallas Willard.kairosfocus_{January 22, 2022
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Zweston said:
You have been shown the way to eternal life, and you refuse to take it because you protest your creator having a will to do as he pleases? It’s like an ant complaining about the actions of a human being, except vastly beyond that in true disparity.
Christianity is one of many hypothetical existential ontologies that I have examined in my life. I don't "protest my creator," I'm criticizing an ontology. Mr. Arrington's position is that we all know evil when we see it, at least in some examples, and there is no denying that evil, but people do so anyway when they attempt to rationalize it as a "not evil" thing - at least in some circumstances, to some people. And here you are, writing a whole flurry of words in an attempt to rationalize as good that which is as clearly evil as the example in the OP.William J Murray_{January 22, 2022
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BobRyan Without the belief in absolute morality, there can be no absolute right and wrong. If everything is subjective, then nothing is good or evil.
Therefore only theists that believe in objective moral law can talk about an evil god . But "evil god" is the same like "square circle" , a contradiction because an evil god would give us an "evil moral law" and people will judge according to this "evil moral law" therefore their conclusions about god will be wrong . :))Lieutenant Commander Data_{January 22, 2022
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Without the belief in absolute morality, there can be no absolute right and wrong. If everything is subjective, then nothing is good or evil. Remove God from society and society always results in human tragedy. The French Revolution was a revolution against Got and the royals. Removal of God led to the the terror. Napoleon was an atheist who wanted to remove God from Europe, which led to the Napoleonic Wars. The Soviets were atheists who tried to sweep God out of wherever they went, which led to Stalin being the biggerst mass murderer in the history of the world. Hitler was an atheist who believed paganism was superior to Christianity. Mao was the second biggest murderer who terrorized China. The Cambodian push for a socialist, anti-God eutopia resulted in a third of Cambodians dead.BobRyan_{January 22, 2022
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Seversky, we both know it is notorious that communities differ on their rules across space and time. Your remark, in 9, that "in essence, that is the basis of all moralities – communities deciding what are individual rights and freedoms that should be protected for the benefit of all" is tantamount to the relativist thesis that is usually implicit hiding behind differences of view and things like the story of blind men and an elephant. Actually, diversity of opinion and power backing particular views in a community in an error prone but rational race, is manifestly irrelevant to objectivity, warrant and knowability of truth regarding duty to right conduct etc. Your rhetorical exchanges with BA only manage to show that the relativist thesis becomes indefensible in the face of actual yardstick cases. It is obvious you cannot acknowledge that a grave wrong was done, attempted infanticide. At the same time, you do not want to admit that alleged non objectivity of moral truth boils down to opening the door to might makes right. The absurdity of nihilism is patent, as has been on record since Plato. I suggest, instead, face the force of yardstick cases and acknowledge that the generally available voice of conscience on such a matter cannot be dismissed or evaded as likely delusion, without undermining the general credibility of mind. Our sight and hearing can go wrong or be defective too, that is not a barrier to the value and validity of objective truth. There is no good reason why we should treat conscience as suspect beyond the normal error proneness of our senses and rational faculties. KFkairosfocus_{January 22, 2022
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Where does moral law come from? One option is that law comes from the king. Might makes right. Another option is that the law comes from the majority. This is an illusion. The powerful can psychologically manipulate majority opinion. This reduces to the first option. The third option is that the law comes from God. From the days of Moses this has been a standard for the western world.hoosfoos_{January 21, 2022
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