Is The Bible An Immoral Book? (dated 29th November 2011, which means I'm only 8 years behind the times) by Lita Cosner is an article that attempts to deflect atheist criticism of the morality of the Bible and of the God protrayed in that Bible.
Here begins my response to "Is The Bible An Immoral Book" by Lita Cosner of Creation Ministries International.
[Given the length of the article and the depth of my responses, this will be a multi-part series]
CMI are actually one of the better resourced and laid-out web resources for Creationism, so it is entirely possible that some of their articles have already answered points I have raised. Their collection of articles can be found at https://creation.com/qa, and then use the Search function to look up a topic.
Given that it was this particular article that inspired me to write a rebuttal against it, and also that I don't wish to go pre-emptively hunting for rebuttals, some may call me lazy, some may call me cynical, I prefer to call myself focussed on the task at hand.
I'm responding to one particular article, not a whole organisation.
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There has been a wave of atheist YouTube videos attacking the morality of the Bible, arguing that not only is it not original in its good moral teachings, but that it also advocates some moral atrocities such as murder and slaveryFactually correct. There are numerous YouTube videos from atheists taking a critical look at the Bible (including my own small collection here), and that yes, there is an argument that the Bible is not original (see Christine Hayes' Yale incredibly fascinating lecture series on the Old Testament) and yes, that the Bible advocates moral atrocities (as the Atheist Experience YouTube channel repeatedly states).
My hope is that the debate continues in order to be able to give people a chance to consider both sides of the argument and come to their own conclusion, like it did for me.
Here, I find myself agreeing with CMI [insert smiley face]. Great stuff! Let's keep it going.
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First, it must be noted that the atheist has no logical ground for saying that anything is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, other than his own personal preferences.
Well. That furious agreement didn't last long [insert sad face].
Right off the bat, the assertion above made by the author is entirely wrong: atheism is merely and simply the disbelief in the existence of gods - it is not a morality system.
There is nothing about atheism or the disbelief in the existence of gods that dictates what morality you subscribe to - the author may as well say that atheism means you prefer crunchy peanut butter to smooth (I'm definitely in the crunchy camp. Skippy cannot be topped. Fight me).
One could be as outspokenly atheist as Richard Dawkins and still have a morality that says turn the other cheek. One could be as anti-theist as Christopher Hitchens and take moral cues from the Norse religion of the vikings.
The converse is also true - there is nothing about believing in the existence of gods that dictates what morality you have. As a current example, the most senior Catholic figure in Australia, (still) Cardinal George Pell, has been found guilty twice of child sex abuse (once in trial, and a later appeal found the conviction was reasonable, though Cardinal Pell may appeal to the High Court of Australia) - did his theism dictate his morality?
If his theism didn't dictate his morality, then neither does atheism dictate mine.
The truth of the matter is that personal morality and religious belief are two separate things.
As for atheism having no logical ground for morality, I have three things to say:
1. Atheism has no defined morality, period. It's not like as soon as you sign up to be an atheist that a package arrives at your door with a prescribed set of beliefs and values. All that being an atheist entails is not believing in the existence of gods, be it that you don't believe gods exist, or you believe no gods exist. Everything else from there is not in the realm of atheism.
2. While atheism doesn't have any prescribed set of values, the most common morality system subscribed to (especially by ex-Christian atheists) turns out to be the most logical for determining good from bad - a morality system far superior to that of the Bible - and it's called secular humanism.
The goal of human morality is that it should maximise the health and well-being of people as both individuals and as a larger society. This then entails that whatever increases human wellbeing and what minimises pain and unnecessary suffering deserves to be called good, and that whatever minimises human wellbeing and causes unnecessary/avoidable pain, suffering, misery or sadness deserves to be called bad. And when there is a conflict or misunderstanding between those basic concepts, then we use a criteria to weigh our options.
[Personally, I subscribe to my own personal form of Epicureanism in that the greatest good is maximum personal pleasure within reason, minimisation of harm for yourself and others, informed by the best available understanding of the world and a mindset of simple living.]
How do we determine what meets the criteria for good and bad? This depends on what morality system you prescribe to.
For those who may not be aware, the basis of secular humanism is that by using research data, studying history, using science to obtain the best knowledge available and by having a rational consideration of the consequences of ones actions and decisions, we put ourselves in the best position maximise human well-being.
To consider how and why this works, let's consider the concept of torture (or its euphemism, enhanced interrogation techniques) as an example.
On the face of it, you and I both know torture is inherently bad, and for all intents and purposes we can categorise torture as bad. But what morality system is best placed to tell us truly if torture is good or bad?
From the secular humanist perspective, torture is bad because it inflicts unnecessary and long-term pain and suffering (both mental and physical), has no proven tangible benefit and has actually been shown to be counter-productive, hence the work by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and OMCT to prevent torture being used by governments.
And to contrast, what does the Bible say about torture? Not much against it, and actually a lot in favour of it.
Shockingly enough, Jesus himself actually endorses torture in Matthew 18:34-35 (NIV, emphasis added):
"...in anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed."
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.
Thus summarises the basis of the Christian religion - whoever doesn't submit to God (or worship God in the correct way or even believe the correct things about God) is destined to be tortured.
This tells us, sure, torture is bad, but far from preventing it, actually welcomes it.
So one one hand, we have one morality system that says torture is bad, here are the reasons why and works on ways to stop it - and on the other we have a morality system with torture as the ultimate stick in carrot-vs-stick.
The end result is that by considering multiple points of historical and research data and taking in to considerations the consequences of particular actions, secular humanism shows itself to be an incredibly logical basis for morality.
So if an person, especially an atheist, bases their morality on the principles of secular humanism, then he bases his morality on the most logical system of morality available.
But further to this, it could well be argued that Biblical morality isn't even a morality system - it's just a series of divine pronouncements and decrees.
This then becomes the catch for Biblical morality - while the focus of secular humanism is to take actions and make decisions that improve human health and happiness on both an individual and a societal level, Biblical morality is just whatever God says goes. Don't like it? What choice do you have?
2. The truth of the matter is that how a person, any person, arrives at deciding what is good and what is bad is entirely up to that person regardless of what they believe about the possible existence of gods.
People get their morality from a number of factors, the biggest one being the culture and society one grows up in, and what someone believes about God typically reinforces personal morality rather than informs it.
To give an example, Christians in the antebellum South in the 1800's arrived at the conclusion that slavery was sanctioned by God, with justification from scripture. But Christians who take cues from an Australian Creationist organisation in the 2000's come to exactly the opposite conclusion. Why would that be? Because of the culture and society of the time/s.
This means that two groups of Christians, separated by time, culture and circumstance can read the exact same text and come to polar opposite conclusions on any given particular topic. Thus, the Bible is NOT a reliable basis for the foundations of what should be called morality and does not deserve to be called logical.
To really drive the point home, I really don't know of anyone who says "Well, I'd really love to own slaves, but because God says not to own slaves, I'll just refrain!".
It's more the case that modern society has laws and a culture that frowns upon and abhors slavery, which in my opinion Christians have retroactively theologised to make it look like God has been against slavery all along.
But let's even grant the assertion that atheists base their morality (the concept of what is good as opposed to what is bad) on mere preferences - OK. Let me tell you about my preferences (in no particular order):
First is my preference for not being arrested or sued.
Second is my preference for not paying expensive legal fees to defend prosecution for my actions.
Third is my preference to improve the physical, mental and emotional well-being of my loved ones.
Fourth is my preference to be a person that positively contributes to society at large (which includes things like paying taxes and not burdening police or the courts with having to deal with any illegal activity).
Fifth is my preference to treat people in a manner that reflects the way I want to be treated.
And this is among dozens of other preferences I could list. So even if you want to conclude that atheists base their morals on mere preferences, I would love to see anyone argue that my preferences are harmful or detrimental.
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The next part takes a swipe at evolution (no surprise there):
Evolution is based on the survival of the fittest at the expense of the ‘unfit’.
Not quite. First, evolution is based on the idea of self-replicating organisms being able to adapt to their environment. How, for example, Tibetan people thrive in places of low-oxygen that the rest of us would struggle to breathe in, or how bacteria are becoming more antibiotic resistant. There's nothing about morality or ethics in any of that. The author may as well assert that evolutionists get their morality from Clifford's circle theorems.
Second, the term 'survival of the fittest' has been taken out of context, and unfortunately, not for the first time by Creationists.
To clarify, the term fittest in the phrase survival of the fittest means fitness to the environment that an organism or life form finds itself in - such as humans being sustained by water and sunlight on a planet that has plenty of water and sunlight - NOT a reference to some vague notion of societal worth (which CMI have attempted to do in some of their other articles) - and my favourite example of this is the Naked Mole-Rat.
The Naked Mole-Rat is small and ugly and virtually blind, so notionally of little worth, but because the species heterocephalus glaber has adapted so well to desert environments it lives in, its conservation status is listed as Least Concern.
So either God is so capricious that he created a small, hairless blind rodent, for reasons unknown; or nature is so marvellous that it gives creatures whose existence defies common sense the chance to thrive.
I know which one makes more sense to me.
Third, '...at the expense of the unfit' really reads to me like a sneaky reference to Social Darwinism (you know, the kind that racists employed) - not biological evolution - and we know this because nothing in evolution says that some species have to die for other species to thrive. In the clear majority of cases, the only reason entire species becomes extinct is typically due to either environmental factors (geological changes, meteorites hitting earth, etc) or humans getting greedy.
The point I'm trying to make is that the author seems to be employing guilt-by-association (also known as an Association Fallacy) to make a point, not relying on a robust understanding of the science.
In light of that, any attempt by the author, Creation Ministries International, any individual Creationist, any Creationist organisation, or even any professed anti-evolutionist to tie the theory of, or the personal acceptance of, the theory of evolution to automatically mean a depraved morality should be thoroughly rebutted.
Has anyone told Dr. Francis Collins that evolution means you have a flawed morality? Has anyone told Billy Graham? Pope Francis?
I'm sure they'd love to know.
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Next comes this gem:
How can any ethics be based on ‘nature, red in tooth and claw’? Even Richard Dawkins claims that he’s a passionate Darwinian when it comes to biology, but passionately anti-Darwinian when it comes to ethics.
This is absurd - no-one should base their ethics on a theory of biological diversity. Ethics should come from morality, which should come from a desire to increase well-being.
So I'm not surprised Richard Dawkins is supposedly anti-Darwinian when it comes to ethics. I don't even know what Darwinian ethics are, let alone what anti-Darwinian is. Does anti-Darwinian mean you don't like long boat trips around the world?
What you believe about the mechanism for the biological diversity found on earth is in no way tied to how you treat your fellow man.
People who believe the science of evolution, and people who believe the concept of Intelligent Design have both done awful things and have both have done things that have contributed to the overall well-being of humanity.
The long and short of it is that we base ethics and morality off of what we understand helps humans live the longest and happiest lives they can!
Hold on - I know secular humanists do. Christians just do what they're told...
Also, we need to understand that there really are no Darwinian ethics. Charles Darwin was not a political figure attempting social revolution - he was merely a naturalist who wrote about nature as he saw it, and added a few thoughts that reflected popular thinking of the time. Furthermore, Darwinism merely refers to one particular model of evolution (there are numerous others proposed).
Charles Darwin could be wrong about one thing, ten things, a thousand things, but the theory of evolution would still stand because evolution isn't defined by one person - it's defined by a rigorous body of scientific research.
Also, Darwin isn't evolution and evolution isn't Darwin, just like Newton isn't calculus and calculus isn't Newton.
To me, again, it looks like Cosner is attempting to guilt-by-association the theory of evolution by sneakily substituting the concept of the Darwinian model of evolution (natural selection) with Social Darwinism (a euphemism for clear and abject racism).
I have observed in all my dealings with CMI (I will say on a personal level, both face-to-face and via email they have been warm and friendly towards me, so this isn't an ad hominem attack) that they suffer the same problem that pretty much every single Creationist suffers from - the false association between the basic theory of evolution by natural selection, and a once-popular theory of sociology called Social Darwinism.
This becomes very apparent when they try to make it seem anyone who accepts the theory of evolution in a modern context to also be accepting of writings of Charles Darwin and others in the context of the 1800's - the 1800's was a very racist time period in history, and most any public figure who wrote anything expressing any opinion during that time on race relations would certainly have said something that doesn't sit well with modern notions of race relations.
This does not mean anyone who believes in the theory evolution is/was a screaming racist because they believe in the theory of evolution, it does not mean they believe in the theory evolution because they were screaming racists, and to tie the two together is not conducive to a proper and healthy debate.
People were racist BEFORE Darwin wrote his books, people were racist AFTER Darwin wrote his books, and people have based their racist beliefs on either of Darwin or the Bible - simple as that.
The below isn't an argument from CMI directly (so I do not wish to put words in their mouth), but it is a paraphrase of almost every argument I have had with Creationists when they know they are losing the scientific argument. They imply that evolution was conceived in racism and has become the scientific mantra of racists:
"Do you believe in evolution? Well, evolution was created by the angry atheist Charles Darwin (fact check: it wasn't and he wasn't) who said evolution works by survival of the fittest (fact check: he didn't), and then a social movement began that devalued other human beings based on who they are or how they were born...no, not Christianity (this time) - I'm talking about another social movement which devalues people which was called Social Darwinism - so they must have been be disciples of Darwin - and they were clearly racists, so if you believe in evolution, you either are on the side of racists, you support racism, you're secretly a racist, or maybe even all three!"
This is textbook guilt-by-association.
Just to drive home how bad and unhelpful guilt-by-association is, there is a small group in America (ostensibly the most Christian country on earth) called the Ku Klux Klan. They're Creationist Christians who don't believe the theory of evolution by natural selection either!
Neither falsehood, nor misinformation nor guilt-by-association are productive to the debate.
We should stick to the facts and make a cogent and rational argument to make our points.
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If asked, the majority of people would say that they would rather live in places where people didn’t murder each other or steal from each other.I'm curious about the people who say they don't want to live in places where people didn't murder or steal. Yes, they typically live in Melton, but still...
These perceived more ‘moral’ countries (listed by the author as Western Europe, America, Canada) have many principles that can be traced back to their Christian heritage that underpinned their governments and society in general.
I once had a debate with a Creationist and I gave him examples of what made Western society so great, and I was able to show him they had no parallels in the Bible:
Trial-by-jury of peers and an impartial justice system? Not in the Bible.
Workplace health and safety regulations, to help people not die at work? Not in the Bible.
The concept of paying tax for the government to provide a wide range of beneficial services to the community? Not in the Bible.
An impartial and well-resourced police force to keep the community safe? Not in the Bible.
An impartial and well-resourced police force to keep the community safe? Not in the Bible.
Clean and sterile hospitals, so that those who get sick aren't at risk of dying in the one place they are getting the help they need? Not in the Bible.
Egalitarian principles of societal mechanics, which enforces a sense that all people are equal before the law and in the eyes of their fellow man? Vaguely referenced in the Bible, but it wasn't anything Jesus said - Paul wrote a line or two in one of the epistles about people being equal. But when you consider that something as fundamental as the abolition of slavery in the same Western countries that have a Christian foundation took almost 2000 years to happen, I'm not going to give the Bible credit on that one.
Suffice to say that my Creationist friend could not demonstrate even one principle that underlines modern Western society that supposedly came from the Bible that could not have been reached by secular means either.
The idea that Western values and principles are based on Christianity and the Bible is a pipe-dream created by Fundamentalists to try claim credit for something they didn't create.
But all this highlights three very fundamental errors by the author:
1. Only some of nations that have a strong foundation in Christianity are considered safe to live in.
To provide a few counter-examples, would Ms. Cosner like to live in Africa? Africa has some of the highest reported affiliation to Christianity, with a reported 147'000'000 Pentecostals - almost half the total general population of the US. Surely they'd be a great Christian destination, no?
To provide a few counter-examples, would Ms. Cosner like to live in Africa? Africa has some of the highest reported affiliation to Christianity, with a reported 147'000'000 Pentecostals - almost half the total general population of the US. Surely they'd be a great Christian destination, no?
Maybe Ms. Cosner would like to live in Central America instead?
The Central America's report Protestant/Catholic combined affiliations well-above 75%. However, as the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime report, some Central American countries report an intentional homicide rate up to 10 times higher than the world average. OK, scotch that idea.
Papua New Guinea, perhaps? They are 96% combined Protestant/Catholic, after all. But maybe a very high crime index might turn someone off.
So it's clear - not every country that has a high affiliation to Judeo-Christian religion is safe to live in.
There must be something else to it...
2. What has happened historically when a society becomes all-out Christian?
We see things like the following:
The witch trials of Salem, Europe and other places. Innocent people were tortured and even executed en masse without any form of natural justice, on the mere suspicion of being a witch. Those interrogated (with enhanced techniques, mind you) either died so they stop family members from suffering the same fate, or gave false information to stop the pain.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The Confederate states of America were fiercely Christian - their government motto was "Deo Vindice" ("God Vindicates") - and were among the most cruel and barbaric societies on record if you weren't white.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The Confederate states of America were fiercely Christian - their government motto was "Deo Vindice" ("God Vindicates") - and were among the most cruel and barbaric societies on record if you weren't white.
Hitler's Germany - Hitler was a baptised Catholic, never renounced his faith, saw the Catholic Church in Germany officially celebrate his birthday, and Hitler got to die by his own hand, not at the hands of the numerous men who tried to assassinate him.
I would try argue the point with anyone that these three examples (among many) are what happens when a society becomes hyper-religious, particularly in the Christian religion.
I would try argue the point with anyone that these three examples (among many) are what happens when a society becomes hyper-religious, particularly in the Christian religion.
3. Western society became great because of political reforms, not through theological stirrings.
The concept of democracy from the Greeks? The senatorial style of government from the Romans? The Magna Carta? The Industrial Revolution? The Age of Enlightenment? Universal suffrage? None of these needed a Jesus.
I could go on with more examples, but even if I grant that there was a Christian undertone to some or all of the reformations throughout the ages, I would grant that credit to Christianity as a social movement as opposed to Christianity the henotheistic trinitarian religion.
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Next is this paragraph:
Hold up there, Cosner! Theft and murder are wrong firstly because they are legislated against in every country and state, as well as by the United Nations (the closest thing we have to a global government).
But why would we say theft and murder are wrong, even without police or state intervention? The reason why highlights the biggest difference between humanism and Christianity -
The humanist understand both the effect and the consequences of actions like theft and murder, as well as the principle of "I don't want to be killed or stolen from, so I won't murder or steal from other people". Humanists also understand from an empathetic point of view the emotional harm that murder and theft have and that it's bad to inflict emotional and physical harm on to people.
But from a Christian perspective, the biggest reason that theft and murder are wrong are because God said so. You may tack on whatever other reason you want, but realise this - every step away from because God said so is just one step closer to the reasons given by secular humanism.
This has the unfortunate effect of confirming that fact that Biblical morality is just decrees from on high.
The secular humanist actually understands the consequences of their actions and refrains from taking actions that are detrimental - Christians, however, could well be thieves in waiting and all that is holding them back is disapproval from daddy.
But the long and short of it is, if God appeared to the world tomorrow and declared murder right and moral, the secular humanist still wouldn't murder or steal - whereas Christians could because their moral lawgiver just gave them carte blanche.
So yeah, I guess the idea that theft and murder are wrong do follow from preferences - the preference to help humanity in general live as long and happy lives as reasonably possible. How we get there is another thing, but the Christian cannot argue that for them it is anything other than divine decree.
If you're a humanist, your moral reasoning comes from a rational understanding of the world around you and a desire to help humanity live happier and healthier lives, which, as long as you are being intellectually honest, means you are as correct as you can be.
But how do we judge what is morally correct? By measuring it against a criteria.
For theists, that criteria is against the will of their deity. And given that in passages such as 1 Samuel 15 and Numbers 31, Yahweh and his right-hand men instructed the Israelites to kill other people and kidnap young girls after their parents and siblings were murdered.
For humanists, that criteria is what improves overall wellbeing and happiness in whatever situation the person finds themselves in (which definitely does not entail killing people or kidnapping young girls - quite the opposite).
But this is all weird because I've never heard of anyone say that their moral reasoning is incorrect - plenty of people say that they have gone against their better judgement and done bad things, but the only time someone says their moral reasoning is incorrect is only when they understand at a later time, in the light of better moral reasoning, that their previous moral reasoning was incorrect.
The only exception to this are people with mental illness or neurological injury that have a proven effect to skew the moral capacity of the person - and even then, it's rare that the person with said condition even realises that their moral reasoning is incorrect.
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Next is this paragraph:
But ‘Theft and murder are wrong’ doesn’t follow from a choice of preferences, any more than the preference ‘I like chocolate’ makes eating a consistent supply of chocolate into a human right or beneficial for someone
Hold up there, Cosner! Theft and murder are wrong firstly because they are legislated against in every country and state, as well as by the United Nations (the closest thing we have to a global government).
But why would we say theft and murder are wrong, even without police or state intervention? The reason why highlights the biggest difference between humanism and Christianity -
The humanist understand both the effect and the consequences of actions like theft and murder, as well as the principle of "I don't want to be killed or stolen from, so I won't murder or steal from other people". Humanists also understand from an empathetic point of view the emotional harm that murder and theft have and that it's bad to inflict emotional and physical harm on to people.
But from a Christian perspective, the biggest reason that theft and murder are wrong are because God said so. You may tack on whatever other reason you want, but realise this - every step away from because God said so is just one step closer to the reasons given by secular humanism.
This has the unfortunate effect of confirming that fact that Biblical morality is just decrees from on high.
The secular humanist actually understands the consequences of their actions and refrains from taking actions that are detrimental - Christians, however, could well be thieves in waiting and all that is holding them back is disapproval from daddy.
But the long and short of it is, if God appeared to the world tomorrow and declared murder right and moral, the secular humanist still wouldn't murder or steal - whereas Christians could because their moral lawgiver just gave them carte blanche.
So yeah, I guess the idea that theft and murder are wrong do follow from preferences - the preference to help humanity in general live as long and happy lives as reasonably possible. How we get there is another thing, but the Christian cannot argue that for them it is anything other than divine decree.
Furthermore, criticisms of the Bible’s morality assume that humans have correct moral reasoning.This is both wrong and weird. Wrong if you are either a Christian or an atheist - if you are a Christian, your morality comes from the Bible which you would argue is correct, therefore you have correct moral reasoning (provided by a book).
If you're a humanist, your moral reasoning comes from a rational understanding of the world around you and a desire to help humanity live happier and healthier lives, which, as long as you are being intellectually honest, means you are as correct as you can be.
But how do we judge what is morally correct? By measuring it against a criteria.
For theists, that criteria is against the will of their deity. And given that in passages such as 1 Samuel 15 and Numbers 31, Yahweh and his right-hand men instructed the Israelites to kill other people and kidnap young girls after their parents and siblings were murdered.
For humanists, that criteria is what improves overall wellbeing and happiness in whatever situation the person finds themselves in (which definitely does not entail killing people or kidnapping young girls - quite the opposite).
But this is all weird because I've never heard of anyone say that their moral reasoning is incorrect - plenty of people say that they have gone against their better judgement and done bad things, but the only time someone says their moral reasoning is incorrect is only when they understand at a later time, in the light of better moral reasoning, that their previous moral reasoning was incorrect.
The only exception to this are people with mental illness or neurological injury that have a proven effect to skew the moral capacity of the person - and even then, it's rare that the person with said condition even realises that their moral reasoning is incorrect.
Many times in history, humans in various societies have assented to things which we know to be horrific. For instance, in Nazi Germany, most people either thought that Jews were non-persons, or assented to the idea through inactionYes. And there's a reason why we understand those things to be horrific - because we know the actions that we call horrific have caused avoidable and unnecessary harm and suffering (if not outright death).
We didn't reach that conclusion by praying to a deity and waiting for what the deity wants us to think - we instead looked at history and used a sense of perspective and empathy.
But I'm glad the topic of Nazi Germany has been bought up, because even here, Cosner gets her facts wrong.
Most people thought Jews were non-persons? Possible. But even then, if they did, it was the result of propaganda - the idea that Jews were less than human was forced down their throat.
As per the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
Propaganda was as an important tool to win over the majority of the German public who had not supported Adolf Hitler.
Assented to the idea through inaction? From the same source:
Combined with terror to intimidate those who did not comply, a new state propaganda apparatus headed by Joseph Goebbels manipulated and deceived the German population and the outside world.
So it was clear that the German people were deceived in to thinking bad things about the Jews, and that the state had no problem using force and terror tactics against people who didn't agree.
This is hardly assenting to the idea through inaction.
But the most ironic thing about Christians bringing up Hitler as an example of atheism that leads to death and atrocities is that firstly, Hitler was not an atheist, and second, Germany has had waves of anti-Semitism for centuries, with theological backing from none other than Martin Luther.
Yes. THAT Martin Luther. The same Martin Luther who was the father of the Protestant movement, the same Protestant movement that defines CMI's brand of Christianity.
Oh, the irony.
Millions of people were killed as a result, but the people involved were, by and large, no better or worse than the average person today.I'm not too sure how Cosner reached her conclusion here. I would actually argue the opposite - that people today are better than they were in the early part of the 20th century.
To help make this point, Professor Stephen Pinker in his book, The Better Angels Of Our Nature, shows that in the last 50 years, society in general is in the middle of the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history.
However, it could also be that Cosner is trying to say that we are a bunch of genocidal anti-Semites just waiting for government approval to exterminate those we don't like.
If that is her point, I thoroughly disagree.
At about the same time, eugenics was widespread in America, with great support from the intellectual elites, resulting in 60,000 Americans sterilized against their willThis I agree with - eugenics, or at the version that encourages abusing or eliminating people based on unfavourable traits and characteristics they were born with, was practiced and experimented with during the last century.
But does the author know and understand why we don't practice this kind of eugenics now in the 21st century?
Because we realised - independent of theology -that forcibly giving people diseases, and deciding to give those people diseases on the basis their race and social status, was a bad thing.
Can God say he hasn't forcibly given people diseases based on their race or social status?
So once we realised what was happening, what did we do about it?
When we saw that governments, particularly the American government, had been abusing their own citizens and the information and verification of that abuse came to public attention, we didn't wait for a deity to hand a policy document down from a cloud, or wait for someone to read the Bible to decide what to do - we made (and continually improved) standards for ethical research that anyone who wants to contribute to science has to abide by!
Some experiments showed that, none more famous than the Stanford Prison Experiment.Psychological experiments reveal that the majority of people are willing to subject another person to pain and even danger if a sufficient authority commands them to do so, or sometimes if a large enough reward is offered.
But not every experiment has. VSauce has a very interesting video based on the SPE that actually brings us to the opposite conclusion.
But does Cosner understand why we don't do more Stanford prison experiments? Because it goes against ethics - ethics that humans created to prevent other humans from suffering!
So this implication that people are just waiting to kill and steal and make people suffer if only they could be free to is technically correct, but it turns out that people will be inclined to do bad things to other people if an authority figure permits, allows, encourages or even commands it - i.e. Demand Characteristics.
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But this just goes back to a point before - the basis of Biblical morality is just decrees from God with very little regard for human well-being, unless human well-being coincidentally aligns with whatever God wants at the time.
Whereas an opposing morality system such as secular humanity is a lot more well-thought out and actually concerns itself with human well-being, which is what a good morality system should be all about
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As for saying atheism is not a logical foundation or basis for morality, Cosner is completely correct - atheism is not a foundation for morality because atheism is just an opinion on the proposed existence of gods.
Whatever morality you enact is informed by the culture and society you are in, as well as a growing set of data points by which you refine your view of the world, thus further informing your morality
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In the next section, I will tackle Cosner's next heading, Misunderstanding The Old Testament.
The only other thing I wish to note before I end this post is that in going over CMI's articles, the only links they seem to provide in their articles are to either Bible verses, or to other articles they have written.
Make of that what you will.
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Until next time, stay happy, healthy and rational.
Regards,
- Damien (quiterationaldad@gmail.com)
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