Dan's final response and summary

This is my final response and summary. I want to thank Caleb for agreeing to this debate. We agree on very little, but I respect Caleb’s willingness to share his views in this open forum.

I’m going to quote quite a bit of your last response, so I am putting your comments in italics for clarification.

I want to begin where Dan left off and then I will cover the rest of his remarks.

He ended by saying,

“The idea of absolute certainty may make you feel good, but you’re just kidding yourself.”

I would simply ask him if he was absolutely certain about that.

The answer is no, I’m not absolutely certain of that, but the argument I laid out makes a compelling case that absolute certainty is an illusion. I don’t see how, even in principle, you could make a case for absolute certainty. I do, however, have a very high degree of confidence, which you might call psychological certainty, that the idea of absolute certainty fills an emotional need in many people while never being achievable in practice.

Dan does have absolute certainty about many things such as his existence and the laws of logic but he uses the technical term “axiom” and claims that the truth of these axioms is not a knowledge claim.

No, I do not claim absolute certainty regarding the axioms. I accept the axioms as true because of (what appears to me) the impossibility of the contrary. I am open to the idea that I do not exist, but before I would accept it I would have to understand how “I’ could be taken out of the equation. If you can explain to me a situation in which the law of non-contradiction doesn’t apply, I’m all ears. Until then I will consider non-contradiction foundational to all knowledge.

So he can uses the laws of logic which he knows to be true and totally disregard any conversation about their justification because he claims these are just things we all know based upon the impossibility of the contrary. However, impossibility implies certainty and Dan has given up certainty.

You’re assuming a whole lot of things about my position here. When I say “impossibility of the contrary” I do not mean that I claim absolute (logical) certainty, but that from my perspective the opposite is not coherent. After all, I only have my perspective, so I don’t normally explicitly state it.

I guess I should just ask Dan if he is a naturalist. He using transcendental laws of logic and even appealing to moral absolutes but when he took the verse from Romans and tried to flip it around so that “nature” is the creator and foundation of all things he appealed to naturalism. Of course we would have to ask, how could nature be the creator and sustainer of the laws that hold nature together?

Yes, I would consider myself a naturalist, although we may disagree on some specific meanings of the term. I’ve never made the argument that nature is the “creator and sustainer” of any laws. You made the mistake of arguing that the laws of logic are the product of God, therefore creating the problem of God preceding logic, and requiring some type of process in which logic was produced (created). I understand that the laws (logic, physics, etc.) are simply descriptions of how nature behaves.

If the natural world is all that there is then we can’t know anything, we are the accident. The universe is simply time and chance acting on matter that came into being out of nothingness.

If by chance you mean without conscious intent, then I agree we are the result of undirected natural interactions over vast stretches of time. But I never said anything about matter coming out of nothing. In fact even cosmologists, when using the term “nothing”, often mean empty space which we have learned is not “nothing”, but is a sea of quantum “foam”. We simply don’t know if mass/energy is eternal, or what form preceded its current form… or even if that makes sense considering the possibility of time having multiple directions.

The Christian God, on the other hand, is said to have created everything from nothing. That’s quite a claim, and begs the question…how?

We find ourselves coming back to the verses from Numbers. Dan said that Christians should read the bible front to back and see that the God of the Bible is some kind of moral monster.

I did not say that Christians should conclude that God is a moral monster from reading the Bible. Although I’m confident that many will come to this conclusion, the only thing I suggested that they should do is decide for themselves.

No Christian would believe that these punishments that were given only to Israel as part of the old covenant which they willingly entered into,  in any way apply to all mankind; especially to those of us under the new covenant.

So the slaughter of Midianite women and children and the taking of the virgins by the Israelite solders in Numbers 31 was first: Moral because the Midianite army was allegedly pursuing the Israelites (despite the fact that the atrocities occurred after the Midianite’s military defeat), then second: Moral because the virgins needed to be taken in for their own good (despite the fact that the Israelite’s were specifically commanded to kill the families of the virgins making them orphans), and now third: Moral because it only applied to the Israelites and doesn’t apply anymore. This clearing of the slate with a “new covenant” undermines the very notion of absolute morality. If moral pronouncements were only good for one group of people, at one specific period of time, then in what sense are they absolute? This “new covenant” concept supports my claim that Christian morality is entirely subjective. Not only can God supposedly change what is moral, but according to Christian doctrine He already has. This is exactly the type of subjective moral relativism that theists often rail against.

…if the Jewish army had not stood up to the armies that had opposed and tried to destroy the blood line through which Jesus was prophesized to be born Gods plan would have been destroyed.  But because God loves Dan, he kept the enemy from winning and protected his plan to save us not just for this life but for the life to come.

Now a fourth reason why killing Midianite women and children was moral…to save Jesus’ blood line. First, the supposed blood line was through Joseph who, according to the story, wasn’t even the biological father of Jesus. Second, an omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe needed a desert tribe to defeat and slaughter other desert tribes so that the eventual non-biological Father of a supernatural, spiritual God/man son could grow up to be temporarily killed by the Romans in order for Him to forgive the sins that I would commit 2,000 years later if I profess belief in this story and He grants me forgiveness for which I will never be worthy. And if I find this story just a little bit absurd, and in good conscious believe that it is a product of a superstitious, pre-scientific society, then I will be tortured forever…because God loves me.

Dan also mentioned that if this was an act of Gods love then he wants no part of it. However, you cannot divorce justice from love. A judge who lets a rapist go because he wants to be loving is in fact the opposite. God might seem mean to those who want to destroy him just as criminals don’t like policemen.

In this analogy God isn’t merely like a human judge, but He will supposedly torture the rapist forever. Even if you grant that God did not create or control the circumstances in which the rape occurred (or otherwise decide not to intervene); how is infinite torture in any way proportional to a finite crime? How is torturing someone forever even remotely loving? This punishment occurs completely out of sight of every living human being, undermining its deterrence, and the rapist is already removed from any potential victims, so he could not re-offend anyway. What then is the purpose of the torture? Wouldn’t a loving God simply implant a certainty in our minds that eternal torture awaits those that sin, and then simply whisk everyone to heaven whether they sinned or not?

Dan wrote, “Is it any wonder that every type of bigotry, hate and violence has had a religious sponsor?” To me this shows that Dan’s objection to God is not an intellectual one but an emotional one.

My objections are both intellectual and emotional, just as your acceptance of Christianity is both intellectual and emotional. Our passions do not invalidate the logic of our arguments.

Though we may say [that homosexual’s] lifestyle is a sinful one we are told to love our enemies.

I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that you would consider gay people “enemies”. How about if we just agree to be loving toward everyone, and try to think of everyone as our brothers and sisters and dispel this notion that they are “enemies”. While we’re at it, maybe we can agree that Leviticus 20:13 was wrong then, and is wrong now.

Notice he still hasn’t said what well-being is but insist that it is the basis for morality. This notion is just one of many competing ideas in the atheistic community as to what morality might be. But how does Dan decide between the well being of Hitler over the well being of the Jews? Hitler rationalized that what he was doing was for the well being of Germany and it’s people. Of course Dan will object to Hitler’s actions but he has to appeal to a higher moral law than just mans well-being. To claim that the well-being of humans is superior to that of the well-being of army ants is to be guilty of Speciesm (assignment of different values, rights, or special consideration to individuals solely on the basis of their species).

Interestingly the Nazi extermination campaign against the Jews was the culmination of centuries of anti-Jewish bigotry by European Christians. Hitler himself was raised Catholic and never ex-communicated. The SS belt buckles and much Nazi armor read “Gott Mins Uns (God is with us)”. There were many bad actors, but how much easier is it to commit such atrocities when your own holy book glorifies multiple genocides commanded by the same God to which you pray?

I did explain that well-being is analogous to health, but with a broader context. Hitler’s actions were objectively contrary to well-being on every level…from the individuals killed in the gas chambers to the large scale destruction of many countries. From Hitler’s own death in his bunker to “shell shocked” GI’s returning from battle. I can objectively say that there was a net decrease in psychological and physical health (well-being) from Hitler’s actions without any reference to a “higher moral law”.

Dan wrote, “The main problem is using terms like “sustain” and “govern”. Both of these terms imply an intentional cause. And why not? You’ve already decided that there is an intentional agent; why not give him something to do? But when scientists speak of the laws of physics, they’re simply describing how mass and energy interact. What they’re not saying (as you are) is that the laws control how mass and energy interact.”

I have not just decided there is an intentional agent; it’s the only reasonable explanation.

This is the classic argument from ignorance. Since no other explanation makes sense to you, God must be the answer. Not only have I provided a reasonable explanation, I dare say that you have not examined every other available explanation. Nor can you possibly know what future explanations may be forthcoming. Despite this you claim absolute certainty of an explanation that is not even coherent.

I agree scientist observe these laws at work but they must observe them consistently in order to do science at all. You have to remember this isn’t just the god of the gaps, it is one of the most fundamental questions we can ask. Why is there something instead of nothing and furthermore how is it that something came from nothing? From nothing you get nothing. To infer a transcendental cause is totally justified.

If I haven’t made this point clear I apologize, but I have never claimed that the universe started from nothing. Ironically that is your claim. You claim that God, who is supernatural and therefore not part of the universe, somehow created the universe from nothing. Furthermore, your claim of inferring “a transcendental cause” is not justified. A logical inference is when you take specific evidence and construct a general rule. But what evidence of existence itself being caused do you have?

Dan wrote, “The statement “logic is a process of the mind, which means it is conceptual by nature” we’ve already covered, and it makes the classic TAG error of confusing our understanding of logic (its conceptualization) with logic itself.

How much does logic weigh? What color is it? If you can’t answer that then it is immaterial. If it is not conceptual then what is it? Dan will no doubt claim it’s an axiom and he doesn’t have to know where it come from because it’s not a knowledge statement. If it is not a knowledge statement then what is it?

Logic is a label we put on an attribute of reality. Apply your questions to “soft”. How much does soft weigh? What color is soft? These questions don’t make any more sense than applying them to logic. Soft is a label we put on some aspect of reality, which is then conceptualized in our brains, and can then be organized and communicated via language to others. So is “soft” a word, a concept, or an aspect of reality? The answer is yes to all three. Soft, like logic, does not simply sprout spontaneously from our brains (or minds), it is rooted in reality. The TAG conclusion that logic must be a product of a transcendent mind ignores logic’s origins as an aspect of reality.

Logic is not something outside of God our use of it is simply a reflection of what God is like.

So you are apparently now changing your position and conceding that logic is not a product of God, but is instead an aspect of His nature. This puts you right back at God being a metaphor for reality (nature). Simply substitute nature for God and you get, “Logic is not something outside of [nature, but] our use of it is simply a reflection of what [nature] is like.” If this sounds familiar, it is because this has been my argument all along.


           

Two thoughts on the fine-tuning argument. You gave some great illustrations but I think they fail. You claim it is just a post diction, but this is not the case since this has been the belief of Christians before modern cosmology understood it.

It’s true that early Christians were not calculating the odds of life existing based on physical constants, but their conclusion was the same…that the world was created for human life. But this conclusion isn’t any more compelling, because humans already had to exist in order to make the claim. There are way more black holes in the universe than humans. Does that mean that the universe was created so that black holes could exist? The idea that you can point to anything that exists and claim that it was the intended outcome of the universe is meaningless.

Now there are only three ways to account for this remarkable fine-tuning of the cosmos for intelligent life: physical necessity, chance, or design. The contemporary debate is over when it comes to which of these is the best explanation and it is design. 

I agree the debate is over, but design never even got out of the starting gates. Ask yourself this question: If everything is designed by an intelligent creator, how would you be able to distinguish between what occurs naturally and that which you know to be designed? How would you tell, for example, a rock from a tool? The answer is you couldn’t. We infer design from specific patterns and combinations, and we know that things like watches are designed precisely because the combination of materials and attributes of the watch do not appear in nature.

Post diction fails as a rebuttal because this is not the only observable world. We can look at all the other planets and observe what naturally occurs in the universe and from that the improbability of a planet capable of sustaining life is immeasurable.

And an alien on some planet in some far distant galaxy, some vast time in the future will look out, and unable to detect any other life, will decide that the universe was created expressly for their existence, rendering your argument nonsense. Or in the 100 billion stars in each of 100 billion galaxies there could be no other life, in which case the solar systems containing life at this moment is 0.00000000000000000001% (1E-22). This is the universe specifically created for life?

I would like to say one final word about Dan and his love of axioms. Dan is true when claiming we need these in order to do any real dialogue. But if you ask him how he knows that he quickly reminds you it is not a knowledge claim. This is somewhat of a philosophical word game. If you define the words in such a way so that they always support your argument it’s not a search for real truth but a justification for unbelief.

On the contrary, I wish only to have my view of reality match with actual reality as closely as possible. I am not wedded to any position. I would gladly accept God if there was a coherent definition and evidence to support the claim. It makes no difference in my life whether the big bang occurred 13.72 billion years ago, or whether it never happened at all. Christians on the other hand very often are raised from birth to believe that a God exists and had specific attributes as described in the Bible (as I was taught). Christians often have strong emotional experiences encouraged by their religious community that are further rationalized and interpreted through the lens of their belief. Christians then have a strong bias to believe, and virtually no incentive to question their faith. There is however one overwhelming motivation that so many Christians simply cannot suppress. This is the motivation to understand reality as it actually is. This is the motivation to want a coherent, consistent understanding of reality that religion is unable to provide.

Dan is certain that logic is an axiom but remember, being certain of anything makes you foolish according to his own statement.

I’ve already made clear my position on absolute (logical) certainty, so I’ll simply close with a quote from the famous author and former Czech Republic President Vaclev Havel:

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth – run from those that have found it."