“My fellow atheists, If we are to dispense with the old understanding of the universe which is touted by the religious as a purposeful universe, proving that we can live a moral life without God is not a sufficient tactic, moreover it is delusional. We only need to destroy the idea of God in man. As soon as all men have denied God, a new era will emerge in which all things will be lawful. Morality will no longer be relevant; indeed, it will become incoherent. And, it will not help our cause.

This thought should not be a bother. We must face it with courage and unflinching steadfastness. Let not your heart be troubled, as has once been said. A new beginning will arise, and men will band together to consume from life all it has to give. Consideration for the past and the future will be discarded for the joy and happiness of the present. The universe will glorify the image of man and the man-god will at last appear. Moment by moment he will be driven with a sense of nobility and gratefulness being cognizant of the improbability of his existence and his privileged position. Conscious of the fleeting momentariness of life, he will not despair of his end, but will live life all the more, loving his brother without desire for accolade; a love which has heretofore been dissipated by thoughts of life beyond the grave. He will extend his conquest of nature through the sheer power of his own will utilizing the methods of science until all things are put under his feet.

But, let us not delude ourselves with the old and fallacious notions of morality. The god-man need not justify anything; indeed, who would he justify it to? There is no law for gods. Where gods stand, the place is holy. All things are lawful for the man whose very essence is the source from which the law emanates. We did not understand this before when we accused God of immorality. Can swine say unto the farmer, “what doest thou?” when the farmer does not eat the same slop in the trough nor reside in the same cage as they? Is the farmer immoral because he does not live by the rules of the swine?

Even so, men, not being used to forming laws, but only recognizing them where they find them already formed, ignorantly judge God by those laws. I repeat, there is no law for God or there would exist a being greater than He. So it is, that there is no law for the god-man, or there would be one greater than he. As it was for God, so it will be for the god-man. It is essential also to note, that neither is there any law to which the god-man can appeal that mediates between the contentions of men. If there were, clearly, there would be a God; and we would cease to be the god-man and become a slave. The very idea of God was tyrannical in nature. While we held it, we were never free. We must break free of these shackles.

Let us not think, however, that there is a new morality operating by the axiom “all things are lawful.” There is no morality. Consider, if you will, that in the absence of God, men who have realized their divinity can divinely approve their own actions. And, since no two men have ever agreed on every single issue, nor indeed has any man always agreed with himself, all actions of men are both divinely approved and disapproved. The same things, then, are holy and unholy at the same time. Do you not see, now, how the very concept of morality is incoherent? Therefore, let us leave it aside and quit trying to be “good without God”, for there can be no such thing. That thought is a product of our imagination and a delusion that indicates we are still holding on to some infinitesimal notion of God.

Brethren, may we move on into the next stage of evolution where everything is determined, and mankind can no longer be moved; an era without morality, an era without God, an era where there cannot possibly be any change, and thus no possibility of redemption. Let us accept things as they are and live in the bare nakedness of that honesty. Then, indeed, will the old conceptions of the universe fall away. And, let us accept neither delusion nor imagination to comfort us and quell our anxieties. For there is, now we know, nothing but us, and we must go on with courage.

Thank you and goodnight.”

Jerry Coyne over at his blog whyevolutionistrue has posted a quote by Carl Sagan that is worth considering. It’s from Sagan’s book published in 2006.

“When you buy a used car, it is insufficient to remember that you badly need a car.  After all, it has to work.  It is insufficient to say that the used-car salesman is a friendly fellow. What you generally do is kick the tires, you look at the odometer, you open up the hood. If you do not feel yourself expert in automobile engines, you bring along a friend who is. And you do this for something as unimportant as an automobile.  But on issues of the transcendent, of ethics and morals, on the origin of the world, on the nature of human beings, on those issues should we not insist upon at least equally skeptical scrutiny?”

-Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, p.145

Considering Sagan’s advice, it occurs to me that I went about the business of choosing a wife all wrong. After all, that decision was much more important than buying a car. I should have kicked her in the shins to see how strong her bones were; took account for how worn the years has made her; and looked under her skirt to make sure everything was in working order. In fact, I should have brought along a physician because he would know her better than I ever could.

To my wife, I shall be as Pygmalion the sculpter-king, who in his hatred of women carved in his block of white marble an image of the perfect, most beautiful woman and fell in love with a stone.

On a more transcendent subject, I don’t know how this would have worked with God. He has no form for me to recognize, neither is he made of matter for me to kick (assuming he had shins). I suppose I would just have to get on with my life, ignorant of his existence, for there’s no way for me to examine him and make a good decision.

To God, I shall be as a housewife, who in confusion at the fire engulfing her house and not being able to determine what needed to be saved, rescued the fire tongs instead. What shall mankind save from the great fire of life?

The ontological argument was first criticised by Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, a contemporary of Anselm of Canterbury. He argued that the ontological argument could be used to demonstrate the existence of anything, utilising an analogy of a perfect island. The argument was also criticised by the famed Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas and also by David Hume and Immanuel Kant.

The Ontological Argument: Possible Worlds

To properly understand the ontological argument, it is necessary to specify what philosophers mean when they talk about “possible worlds.” A “possible world” refers to a counterfactual –a state of affairs that could have been true. For something to exist in a “possible world” simply means that its existence is logically possible.

The ontological argument for the existence of God refers to the claim that the very logical possibility of God’s existence entails his actuality. The ontological argument begins with the claim that God, by definition, is infinitely great. Thus, no entity can surpass God’s greatness. God, in other words, is the greatest conceivable being (if one could conceive of a greater being, then that would be God). Being infinitely great entails existence in every possible world since a being that existed in merely some possible worlds would be superseded in greatness by a being that existed in every possible world. Moreover a maximally great being is one that possesses the property of necessary existence. Thus, if a being of maximal greatness exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. If an infinitely great being exists in every possible world then that being must exist in the actual world. Since God is an infinitely great being, therefore, God must exist.

The Ontological Argument: The Premises

The conclusion of the ontological argument, as formulated by Alvin Plantinga and others, depends on a form of modal axiom S5 (which contends that if the truth of a proposition is possible, then it is possible in all worlds). This axiom also contends that, if it is possible that a proposition is necessarily true (that is to say, it is necessarily true in some possible world), then it is necessarily true in all possible worlds. The logic of the ontological argument is formally summarised by philosopher Alvin Plantinga as follows:

1. A being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and

2. A being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.

3. It is possible that there is a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)

4. Therefore, possibly, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good being exists.

5. Therefore, (by axiom S5) it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

6. Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

The Ontological Argument: Is It Sound?

While the ontological argument has been the subject of fierce criticism by many contemporary philosophers, many of the criticisms of it result from a failure to properly understand the argument.

The ontological argument is clearly logically valid –that is to say, the conclusion necessarily follows provided that Premises 1 to 5 are true. The crucial Premise, therefore, is Premise 3, namely, that it is possible that a maximally great being exists. To refute this Premise, one would need to show that the very concept of an infinitely great being is somehow logically incoherent –like a “married bachelor”. Since no argument to that effect has been forthcoming, however, it follows necessarily and inescapably that “Therefore, a maximally great being exists.”

This article was cross-posted from AllAboutPhilosophy.com http://apologeticsuk.blogspot.co.uk

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And “Thou shalt not,” writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

-William Blake, The Garden of Love

Man who is wretched and yet great,

Man who’s a sinner and yet a saint.

“An atheist is a person who questions every kind of authority, and this is the thing that is important. Because, if we can, without blinking an eye, question the ultimate authority, God, who must be obeyed; then we can question the authority of the state, we can question the authority of a university structure, we can question the authority of our employer, we can question anything.”

–Madalyn Murray O’Hair (quote from here)

“A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself…”

— Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England

“Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.”

“For in all states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom; for liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists: (for who could be free, when every other man’s humor might domineer over him?)”

–1. John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration,  2. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

“For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.”

–Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England

The law of human nature is not, in all points, a limitation of human freedom but a direction of a freewill agent toward his proper interest. That law does not deserve the description of confinement which prevents us from falling off of cliffs and getting stuck in ditches. It’s aim is to preserve and broaden our freedom, not only to restrain.

If no God exists, then no law of human nature exists. If no law of human nature exists, then all government of human society is arbitrary and has no objective foundation or obligation upon men.

Moreover, there is no foundation for the establishment of government by free discourse in light of atheism because there is no objective and equal value of human persons to respect concerning each other’s jurisdiction or dominion over one another. Others need not respect the property (life, liberty, and estate) of their neighbors because no one has laid equality upon them or an obligation to respect.

The only reason, outside of the law of human nature, that can be maintained concerning respect of property, is only in the pursuit of certain social ends: i.e. If it is the case that men are pleased to preserve their property, then they need only confine their actions in such a manner as to meet those ends. But, let it be clear, if there is no superior being to lay an obligation upon them, then the choice to confine one’s action toward the preservation of property is arbitrary, and only holds so much as men are pleased to do so.

Also on atheism, outside of society, freedom is to do what one lists. There is no security within which one may conduct one’s affairs without constant threat of harm, and that harm cannot be considered illegitimate. There is no law the victim may appeal to, neither has he right to punish the offender, although, he may punish the offender if it so pleases him.

Furthermore, since rules of society are arbitrary, in a democratic society where the social end is peace with one another, those who think themselves outside this arbitrary law can rightly consider it tyranny. Tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, and right cannot be defined by arbitrary decision if a person is not pleased to accept that arbitrary decision.

This is why John Locke states that promises and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, cannot hold for an atheist. He has no law but such as he prescribes to himself and it holds as long as it pleases him to hold it.

The objection may arise, “But there are, indeed moral atheists. Are you saying that atheist are inherently immoral?” No. Because there is a law of human nature and they can apprehend it as much as the religious man can. They can be just as moral or even more so than the Christian because the same law holds for both and both understand it. Not only does the law of nature govern them, but the laws of the society they are in confine their actions as well. However, since the atheist has rejected God, the only foundation for moral obligation; the option is left open to him to reject the law of society and the bonds of nature’s law, even in the smallest of measures, because his true foundation is whatever pleases him.

Baumgardner, in quoting Frank Wolfs, boils the scientific method down to the four following essentials:¹

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomena. (In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a mathematical relationship.)
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict other phenomena or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters.

Wolfs explains, “No matter how elegant a theory is, its predictions must agree with experimental results if we are to believe that it is a valid description of nature. In physics, as in every experimental science, ‘experiment is supreme’ and experimental verification of hypothetical predictions is absolutely necessary.”¹

Similarly, Atheist Ethicist explains “The way science works, a scientist can’t just shout out that [s]he knows something. She has to say why she thinks she knows something, and then wait for somebody else to confirm the findings.

Some say that the scientific method is a superior form of attaining any meaningful knowledge and that all others are to be discarded. However, Inasmuch as the scientific method requires independent verification, it is inadequate in matters of religion.

All the life and power of true religion consists in the inward and full persuasion of the mind. Religion itself is made of two components: a profession of faith toward God and an outward form of worship. If we are not fully persuaded in our own minds that our faith is true and our form of worship is well-pleasing, we are conducting an exercise in hypocrisy and adding to our list of offenses toward God. This being the nature of religion, the only force that can be used therein is not force at all, but admonishments, exhortations, arguments, and advice.

To require the truth of religion to hinge upon independent verification conducted by another person is to leave the care of your soul, indeed its very salvation, to a person who does not have as vested an interested in your salvation as you have. The mere position of an outside observer does not yield more insight into other men’s faith or worship. These things ought every man to sincerely inquire himself with due diligence, search, study, and meditation. We are all equal in nature concerning these things and no man has been placed above another.

But, let us grant for the moment that the person independently verifying another man’s faith is seeking only that man’s good and has attained superior knowledge. Even then we are in no better position. A government official who shows me the best way to conduct a business, may, upon my failure, shore up my losses and provide security for me. But, there is no security for the life to come that can be given by another man. It is not within another man’s power to ease my loss, or prevent my suffering, or restore me in some measure. That is a matter between God and myself.  The Kingdom of God is in the hearts of men (Luke 17:21) and therefore no man, who’s only real jurisdiction is in the physical world, can affect a better care than I of my soul by use of superior knowledge, or outward force, or coercion.

The failure of the scientific method in attaining any efficacious change in the full persuasion of one’s mind in matters of religion, renders pointless the need for proofs or evidence to be submitted to anyone for scrutiny. Every private man’s search and study discovers the truth of the matter unto himself. Indeed, the man to whom the proofs or evidence must be supplied will have his hands full making his own salvation sure. It would be even more treacherous for a man who cares for his soul to submit evidence for scrutiny to someone who has a complete lack of care for his own soul. An atheist is a very poor man indeed to receive advice from on matters of religion.

Therefore, let us leave aside the scientific method in matters of religion and reach toward God in faith and in the full persuasion of the mind.

1. Wolfs, F. 1996. Introduction to the scientific method. Physics Laboratory Experiments, Appendix E, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester

The Adversary Culture, as Lionel Trilling indicates, believes “a primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture… and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.” In this view, society and government are thought to have negative characteristics such as force, compulsion, control, and coercion while the individual is thought to have positive qualities such as liberty, independence, will, and goodness.

(Lionel Trilling, Beyond Culture [New York, 1965], p. xiii.)

But let us not forget the reason for society in the first place. Our short lives here on earth are of an uncertain duration, frail, and fleeting. This being the case, we have need of several outward supports that the pain of hard work can provide in order to make our lives comfortable. For these “supports” are not provided to us by nature nor do they spontaneously appear in front of us prepared for our use. We must work to attain them. Crops don’t plant themselves. However, there are men who violently take the fruits of other men’s labors rather than put in the work to attain these things for themselves. Therefore, the possession of what honest work has acquired needs to be preserved, as does liberty and strength. This state of affairs leads men to enter into a society that by mutual assistance they may secure their property, liberty, and outward things pertaining to this life while providing a defense from external violence. This can hardly be thought of in negative terms.

What is not so easy to defend against is the inward threat of violence to the very fabric of society. For people who desire the overthrow of a particular society do not couch their intentions in plain terms, but rather they emphasize liberty and equality. Liberty and equality can be rightly used to change an unjust law or tradition in society and improve parts of society. But this is not the aim of these particular people. If their real intentions were known, the public would be aware of it and provide a defense against it.

It is curious that movements of “liberation from society” tend to emphasize group identity which gives rise to new traditions and conformities; and given enough power, these movements would replace the old tradition with a “tradition of the new”. And presumably, after a sufficient time has past when the “new society” has been established, another liberation movement would develop to oppose that culture. This attitude of “counter-culture” hinders the members of the movement from bargaining with the current society or the next one, or suggesting a new code of law to follow, or presenting a new constitution, or even demonstrating how their way is somehow better. This is not improvement. This is liberation for the sake of liberation, and speaks more of discontentment and envy than a sensible improvement in society. Instead, it is the dissolution of society in order to violate the protection of honest men’s possessions and make lawful the unlawful deeds of thieves. This is what lies behind slogans like “We are the 99%” in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It is the duty of the civil officer to secure the just possession of the things belonging to this life and to execute laws equally and without partiality and to preserve the commonwealth. Therefore, words contrary to the main aim of society, which is each of its member’s well-being, and the moral rules which are necessary to the preservation of our well-being should not be tolerated by the civil officer. These words are doubly not to be tolerated when accompanied with actions that demonstrate violence toward rules of civilized society and indicate that on the occasion that they seize the government, they would possess themselves of the estates and fortunes of their fellow citizens thereby making insecure what we thought to secure in the first place: our money, lands, houses, and such like that we obtained with our hard work.

And what sense would it make to allow these harmful words or actions on the grounds of free speech? Individuals who enter into movements or groups of this nature admit implicitly that their allegiance lies not with their fellow citizens nor their protection or safety, but to another. For the civil officer to allow this, is to allow a kind of foreign jurisdiction in his own jurisdiction, and enlisted soldiers, as it were, against the people he is sworn to protect.

(picture from TheBlaze.com)