The reason I ended my debate with Jason over here is because Jason actually admitted his own defeat. More on that in a bit.
I had argued that Jason’s rejection of pedophilia does not comport with his atheism since his atheistic view of morality cannot account for universal and invariant laws of morality. For Jason, all morality is a matter of subjective opinion. It’s just one man’s opinion vs the next. Of course, Jason thinks that morality should be based on “the facts,” however he also stated that no one is obligated to accept the facts as facts. When you go to apply this understanding to pedophilia we see that, first, people are under no objective moral obligation not to engage in pedophilia, and second, people are not obligated to accept the fact that pedophilia is harmful to children. But why, according to atheism, should people not harm children? You see, the atheistic worldview allows for pedophilia. Jason even admitted that it’s possible some society might accept it.
Later Jason stated that people have to agree to live according to the rules of their society (which is disgusting when you read that in light of the previous sentence). But is this a moral obligation, which he believes is subjective opinion? Or is this a fact, which Jason says people are not under any obligation to accept? Ouch. Should people live according to the rules of society because society says so? Not only is this circular reasoning, but societies can be wrong. But if you can’t account for objective morality then you can’t account for when a society is “wrong,” especially when people, according to Jason, are not required to accept the facts as facts. Or should we obey the rules of society or allow people to be punished even when those rules are wrong?
You see, if morality is subjective, then there is no such thing as morality because there are no prescriptions to which people are bound regardless of their own opinion. So not only does atheism have no basis for morality, but in this case the atheist would rather construct his worldview to allow for pedophilia than to reject his own atheism. That’s both sick and sad.
Not only is Jason’s position irrational, since it allows for morality to be arbitrary, but it’s also self-defeating. If morality is a matter of subjective opinion and if people are not obligated to accept the facts as facts, then no one is required to listen to Jason, no one is required to adhere to or agree with anything he says because no one is morally obligated to do anything. His position is that you don’t have to agree with his position. That’s why I said Jason admitted his own defeat and that’s why I ended my debate with him.
18 comments:
It looks to me like you simply ran away from the debate after people started asking you where the Bible condemns paedophilia.
If you ended the debate on those grounds, why do you have to frame it here? Why not just let people read the debate and see it for what it obviously is?
You ended the debate because people called you on your gambit.
They asked you to prove that Christian morality was objective. They asked you to show where your Bible condemns pedophilia.
You couldn't do either. You can't do either. You just kept insisting that everyone accept the premise of your shell game. When you realized that it didn't work, you cowered back here to pat yourself on the back.
I am not a prophet, but I predicted this whole thing playing out exactly as it has.
You should have listened to me, instead you doubled-down.
One more time for the road Peter:
If Christian morality is objective, universal, unchanging, and independent of context, is it always morally wrong to murder children?
This should be a softball question.
Doesn't claiming that I admitted defeat, actually make you a demonstrable liar? Keep violating the "bearing false witness" commandment -- I'm sure St. Peter will overlook it, because you were lying about an atheist.
I've got your non-subjective, Christian Bible-based morality right here:
1 Samuel 15:2-3
Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Numbers 31:17-18
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Deut 2:33
And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.
And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
Deut 22:28-29
If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;
Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.
For all your talk about arbitrary morality, you made it abundantly clear that you are unable (or unwilling) to provide scriptures that condemn pedophilia. So, I've now provided scriptural examples that show your holy book doesn't consider child murder and rape a crime. Where's your objective morality now?
Justin, er, Jason, did you miss me?
Let's try this:
Premise #1: Jason believes that what he is saying is factual.
Premise #2: Jason believes that people are not morally obligated to accept the facts.
Conclusion: Jason believes that people are not morally obligated to accept what he is saying.
If premise #1 is false, then we can disregard what Jason is saying. If premise #2 is true, then we can disregard what Jason is saying. Either way, we can disregard what you're saying. That's a self-defeating position.
Or how about this:
Statement #1: "There is no objective moral imperative that people have to accept facts."
Statement #2: "However, people who do not accept facts are, how do you say it… WRONG."
These two statements contradict each other. The first statement says I'm not required to accept the facts. The second statement says that I'm required to accept the facts.
George: "If Christian morality is objective, universal, unchanging, and independent of context, is it always morally wrong to murder children?"
Thanks for the softball. Having a debate over whether murder is wrong presupposes that morality is objective. That morality is objective is a Christian position. This is why I call my blog Atheism Presupposes Theism because you have to presuppose the Christian view in order to attack Christianity. In so doing you unwittingly prove Christianity by presupposing it in your argumentation.
Or course, if you think that morality is subjective, i.e., one man's opinion vs. another, then there's no basis for saying murder is wrong.
Thanks again Peter for avoiding a simple question.
You will see in the premise of my question that I grant you your premise insofar as it applies to child murder. You still won't take a position on it. What should that say about your logic for an objective morality?
So by your presupposition that morality is objective, you agree that child murder is wrong then?
Is that what I can interpret your words to mean?
Peter's method:
If you want to argue the point under premise #1, then I am correct, and I win. If you want to argue the point under premise #2, then you are incorrect, and I win.
F*$@ing pathetic.
Dan,
Jason actually accepts premise #2. He needs to stop doing that otherwise he continues to show that atheism has no basis for rationality.
George,
Of course I have a position on the matter in view of the 6th commandment that murder is objectively wrong. But since the atheist position is that morality is subjective, the 6th commandment is just a matter of personal opinion for atheism. And if the atheist says that the Christian position is "morally wrong," then he assumes that morality is objective and thus proves the Christian position.
Of course, we may need to clarify what the definition of murder is. Killing is wrong, but since we live in a fallen and sinful world, there are some exceptions to the rule (self-defense, just war, capital punishment in appropriate situations, etc.) Killing is only appropriate when God authorizes it, otherwise it's murder. Now, if Adam and Eve hadn't fallen into sin, there would be no killing at all, period.
God told Adam and Eve that in the day they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. Scripture elsewhere says, "the soul that sins shall die." The fact that most people get to live a life of some eighty years or so is a remarkable act of grace, since all men deserve death for their sin -- in fact, all people will die for all have sinned.
Therefore, in the Christian position, death was originally something that was not supposed to happen. But in the atheistic worldview, death is normal, it's just part of life, it's not something you have a reason for getting upset about.
Ok, George. Now I have a question for you. Given your acceptance of evolution and atheism, what's the difference between a human killing a human, and a lion killing a zebra?
Peter,
Thanks for taking a position. It only took you four days and eight requests. Did you really have to think about it that much? Did you have to ask your pastor?
Killing is wrong. I agree with you. If there are some exceptions to that rule does that not make it by nature subjective, in that it requires context? Unless you only consider murder a moral question and not killing? Killing seems to me to be a moral question, I wonder if you agree? If not, I wonder if we are even able to agree on the definition of morality out of the gates.
You state, in your answer, that killing is not a moral question. So you can kill at will, so long as you are justified in doing so?
If you killed me today, because God told you to do it, you would not be morally culpable?
I'm struggling to follow your logic, because I suspect there is none to follow.
I'm glad that of all the responses I have given, you seem to feel that you can defend against this one.
So we are clear, Christianity only comports with child killing, as long as God told you to do it. Your words.
So if God decided to tell you to kill your children, then you are morally right to do as he says. Glad you cleared that up for us.
How, then, are we to know what God told you? Does He give you a receipt? If someone kills their children and tell you that God commanded it, are you morally bound to believe him? What is the procedure?
Funny how your "open commenting policy" hasn't yet allowed this comment to show up: http://www.lousycanuck.ca/?p=4689&cpage=1#comment-13269
Luckily I copied it from the "your post is saved and will show up soon" page before closing that window, just in case.
That's proof, to me, that this is a hostile debating environment. I will not return. I consider you to have ceded every salient point and to have ended the debate prematurely, and in a huff, because you are empirically and verifiably wrong on enough points that your argument fails on its own merits.
Wow, just..wow!
First, so as not to create a false conflation of two very different situations, wouldn't you agree that it would be more appropriate to ask: What is the difference between a lion killing a zebra and a human killing a cow/fish/rabbit(insert food source here)? How would you answer that question, Peter? Shouldn't your question have been: What is the difference between a lion killing a lion and a human killing a human? Or does that just lead to some uncomfortable parallels?
I expand on this point over at Jason's blog.
No one here is saying that you are incapable of going out and killing someone. You are perfectly capable of doing so. If you read the Bible and believe it to be literal and unchanging, then God would argue that you don't do it enough. Your ability to do something is not the same as the rightness of doing it. Your opinion of it's rightness does not make it right. You are perfectly capable of lying, you can does not mean you should. Really let that one sink in, because it is important. You are asking us to concede that because you are not required to listen to an argument/moral truth etc. that that makes the argument/moral truth false. Your denial of something doesn't make it false. You have no objective moral obligation to be right. When your opinions conflict with the social contract, there are consequences.
This is as brief as I can be. But I'll happily keep making you look stupid if you'll let me.
But, anyway, one of the George's, I can't remember which now, had basically said (and I paraphrase) that you possess no logic for him to follow. I say to you that you do have logic for him to follow, brother...so don't let that insult (injury) weaken you of your courage. Christ is the Logic of God! And you are with God IN CHRIST!
Let's retreat, and do some serious discussion...and then we can start with a completely FRESH argument/defense. At least then there'd be two of us instead of you trying to do battle within a tight huddle of atheists who've all got you surrounded (and believe me, they've heard ALL OF THE ARGUMENTS--meaning that we are suffered to begin critically developing our own...newer, fresher arguments.) Regardless, all arguments are cut from the same animus embodied within our CREED...we just need a FRESH CUT, which meets the 21st century opponent right at what I call a "subtlty," or a relevant "pivotal point" to our opponents worldview and the points where it touches upon such logic as our faith does possess...and it possesses an infinite supply, so we shall never expect to run out...
Anyway, you can visit my site at www. the great knock dot com if you like...I have a "contact" section in there with my email, so we can take our submarine and "go under" for a spell, put our heads together and draw upon the grand logic of our God--after all, it is written: "The LORD of Heaven's Armies is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress."--Psalm 46:7
LASTLY: Now, if you'll kneel, please, allow me to humbly "dub" you a knight, for all to see! I will take the flat edge of my sword and lay it upon your right shoulder, just so...and declare you a knight, before both the Heavenly Hosts, and before our very polished opponents!! Sir Peter, I dub thee!
Yours,
"the little disciple"
a.k.a. Katie
Some of what I sent didn't show up, brother...and I give up...so, I did save it in clipboard and am going to paste the whole message into a document. Get hold of me at www.thegreatknock.com in my contacts section and I'll email an attachment of my entire message to you:-)
Katie.
Hey, Peter. Feel free to respond to any of the posters here on your own blog. I don't mind dropping by to see what you're up to!
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