re Vuletic: The argument is not that those who don’t believe in god can’t be moral, most are. The argument is those who don’t believe in a transcendent, eternal, and universal God have no basis to judge whether or not something is moral or not; whether or not something will be moral tomorrow; and whether or not something is moral everywhere.

I think the truth offered by the blog is exactly that of Romans 1:21. Even these supposedly smart guys can’t put together a world where God does not exist and be consistent.

http://darwinianfundamentalism.blogspot.com/2005/07/darwinian-fundamentalist-manifesto.html

New rule: never syllogize while supervising a sleepover for a bunch of girls age 7 and under!

What would a conclusive disproof of the existence of God do to my moral stature? Considering that I don’t believe in God to begin with, the answer is that a disproof of the existence of God would not cause me to change my moral views at all.

His rendering of the Christian’s moral argument works like this:

1. If God exists, then I must obey his moral laws.
2. God exists.
3. Therefore, I must obey his moral laws.

So by denying premiss (2), he concludes — quite rightly — that his obligation to obey moral laws is unaffected. There is no logical conclusion that one can draw by denying the antecedent.

However, the moral argument actually works like this:

1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
2. But objective moral values do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

If you choose to deny premiss 1, you must supply a grounding for objective morality apart from God. If you choose to dispute premiss 2, then you must affirm that torturing babies for fun (etc.) is morally equivalent to jumping on a live grenade to save someone’s life.

In other words, the moral argument reasons to God’s existence — not from it.

Sorry I didn’t get to read Kant… I hope to get there…

“…the moral experience of the individual is what is important.”

Why is it important?

“…abandoning one’s children is not morally acceptable.”

This happens every day around the world, why is it not acceptable?

“A good atheist parent probably looks after her children because she loves them - love itself gives her every reason to not abandon them.”

Please define “good” and “love”, on whose authority should I accept that definition if the moral experience of the individual is what is important?

How dare Vuletic push his morals on people that abandon their children like that?!

Go back and read Immanuel Kant and brush up on The Categorical Imperative.

Here’s another good refutaiton of your position.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/mfound.html

and

http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/atheism.htm

And, finally, if your a double predestination Calvinist, you’re either elect or reprobate, and there’s nothing you can do about it, God has determined your future and you can’t change it.

I’ve given the link showing where I got the quote from, but just for the sake of discussion, let’s go ahead and say it’s inaccurately attributed to Dawkins. Let’s even say it’s a work of fiction — let’s suppose it was a line from a character in a movie.

The point is that neo-Darwinian atheism, with its philosophical naturalism, cannot provide an adequate explanation for questions like “why is intuitively obvious that some things that people do are meritorious and other things are horrible?”

If all we are is molecules bouncing around, concepts like “merit” and “horrible” are meaningless, but as the quote says, that would be “intolerable.” To make it tolerable, the atheist has to commit to an inconsistent position that maintains that objective moral values do not exist, and yet, are somehow indispensable.

This is tantamount to saying that embracing contradiction is more tolerable than facing the facts.

“The Dawkins quote isn’t accurate either.”

UC, how do you come to this conclusion?

Oh look, this isn’t an argument! …Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.

C’mon, “false witness?” Red herring.

The topic at hand is whether philosophical naturalism is an adequate worldview for answering the biggest questions we face as human beings.

The Dawkins quote isn’t accurate either.

Apparently the topic is “bearing false witness.”

However, I agree that there is some question around the origin of this one and that we should be careful as Christians not to be inaccurate.

The 100th anniversary edition would have been published in 1959 — Sir Arthur Keith died in 1955.

Sir Arthur did write an introduction in 1928 but there is no quote like this to be found. It remained the foreword until 1958.

Keith, Arthur. Introduction to “The origin of species by means of natural selection”, by Charles Darwin. London: J.M. Dent, 1928.

Thompson, William Robin. Introduction to “The origin of species”, by Charles Darwin. London: J.M. Dent, 1958.

I’d say strike that quote but let’s get back to the topic at hand.

I put this quote in the urban legend category.

MSU

Of course its also not hard to find those who claim it is bogus as well. However, I’ve found that to be true for virtually anything that questions the party line where evolution is concerned.

Take care,

Larry