Bad Objections to the Fine-Tuning Argument

Intro

This article is about refuting bad objections to the fine-tuning argument (FTA), but what is the FTA? Roughly, the fine-tuning argument goes like this. It starts with the scientific observation that the universe is fine-tuned in the sense that given our physical laws, if certain constants and quantities were altered even slightly, the universe would be life-prohibiting: it would not contain life. And by “life” I don’t just mean life as we know it; I mean no physical life at all. The fine-tuning is such that if the parameters were chosen at random, it is far more likely that the universe would be life-prohibiting rather than life-permitting. So why is the universe with its physical laws life-permitting? Design is a very straightforward explanation, and this cosmic fine-tuning is taken as evidence for design. Even if this fine-tuning argument is successful it merely concludes the universe was designed so it wouldn’t strictly prove God, but the fact, if it is so, that the universe is designed does make atheism considerably less plausible. So it has obvious theological implications. (Caveat: some versions of the FTA argue for God more directly.)

There are many sorts of bad objections. One is to strawman the phrase “fine-tuning” to mean “designed” (when it merely refers to the aforementioned scientific observation), deny that science says that fine-tuning is real, and then avoid discussing the matter further.

Another objection is to avoid that straw man but deny fine-tuning anyway, yet I find it highly unlikely that atheist physicists like Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinov would have embraced fine-tuning if there wasn’t good evidence for it (they talk about this in their book The Grand Design). There’s also PBS Space Time which mentions the reality of fine-tuning, where the astrophysicist there says this (14:21 to 15:26).

Many people had the following objection: they say that the universe isn’t really fine-tuned for life or for observers because there could be many types of observer very different to ourselves, that could potentially exist if the fundamental constants were different. Well, actually, fine tuning arguments for the fundamental constants for the most part take that into account. We can probably assume that for an intelligent observer to emerge in any universe, that universe must be capable of forming complex structures—whether or not it looks like life as we know it. So the universe needs to last a reasonable amount of time, have stable regions and energy sources for those structures to form, and have some building blocks—whether or not they look like atoms as we know them. Much of the parameter space that the constants of nature could have taken eliminate one or more of these factors. So while there may be many small parts of that parameter space where observers can arise, most of it—and hence most universes—should be devoid of observers.

In my opinion the objection to the FTA with the most potential is a multiverse hypothesis in which there are a nearly infinite number of universes with varying parameters such that it’s likely that at least one of them is life-permitting. I think there are some problems with that alternative, but I won’t focus on them here. Mostly I want to focus on the terrible objections that are more popular than they should be. Some of these (but not all of these) I’ve taken from Counter Arguments and Unsolicited Advice.

Bad Objection #1: The Puddle Analogy

Objection: I’ve discussed the Puddle Analogy on Capturing Christianity, and some forms of it are worse than others, but one of them goes something like this: imagine a sentient puddle finds it perfectly fitting the hole it’s in and thus concludes it must have been designed for it, when that’s not the case at all; it’s by virtue of undirected natural processes that water filled the space of the hole. The fine-tuning argument similarly fails; the universe wasn’t made for us to exist, just as the hole wasn’t made for the puddle.

Response: Again, the “puddle analogy” response comes in different forms, but in some cases people give the analogy and don’t provide sufficient detail into how exactly the FTA fails (like in the above paragraph). Simply asserting, for example, the universe wasn’t made for us to exist and talking about a story where that same principle applies to a puddle doesn’t at all address the evidence at hand. To put it in an oversimplified way, one can’t just describe the puddle story and drop the mic, reasonably concluding that the FTA has been refuted.

Still, some do go a step further with the Puddle Analogy and say that just as the water flowed to fit the space it was in, so too life would have conformed to the parameters of the universe even if they were different. The problem, of course, is that the life-permitting parameters are extremely narrow as the PBS Space Time video describes, so this wouldn’t work.

Even if the Puddle Analogy worked as a kind of “entrance” to an objection that does have more intellectual substance, the Puddle Analogy won’t by itself be sufficient to constitute a good objection to the FTA.

Bad Objection #2: If the Universe Weren’t Fine-Tuned, We Wouldn’t be Here

Objection: the universe must be compatible with our existence. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here. There exists a sort of observer selection effect such that observers exist and if observers exist the relevant parameters must be life-permitting. The probability of fine-tuning given both observer selection (we exist and the universe’s parameters permit our existence) and the universe not being designed is not less than the probability of both the observer selection effect and the universe being designed. Or to put it mathematically, given the following symbols:

• R: fine-tuning observation.
• D: the universe was designed.
• ¬D : the universe was not designed.
• OSE: the observer selection effect (we exist and the universe’s parameters permit our existence).
• P(R∣D & OSE): the probability of R given D and OSE.
• P(R∣¬D & OSE): the probability of R given ¬D and OSE.

The objection I’m critiquing here that since the below is false…

P(R∣D & OSE) > P(R∣¬D & OSE)

…the FTA doesn’t work. The reason why it doesn’t work is basically because we shouldn’t be surprised, given the observer selection effect, to find such fine-tuning even if the universe were not designed.

Response: John Leslie gives a helpful analogy: imagine you are before a firing squad with a bunch of marksmen trained to shoot and you, and they all miss. It is true that, given the observation selection effect (modified mutatis mutandis for this situation) the survivor shouldn’t be surprised to observe they aren’t dead (given that they are alive), but this obviously doesn’t refute the design hypothesis (in this case, that you survived by design rather than all the marksmen accidentally missing). Similarly, while it may be true that if the universe weren’t fine-tuned, we wouldn’t be here to observe it, this doesn’t do anything to refute the design hypothesis. The objection fails.

Bad Objection #3: Unknown Physical Necessity

Objection: One could say that perhaps the parameters of the life-permitting range couldn’t have been different, and that they are what they are by some kind of physical necessity.

Response: At 15:27 to 16:25 of the PBS Space Time video, astrophysicist Matthew O’Dowd says this.

A few of you also pointed out that I missed one possibility—perhaps the dials defining the fundamental constants were neither randomly set nor deliberately tuned. Perhaps there’s some unknown physical principle that demands they have exactly the values that they do. Well right, that’s possible, but the point is that unless that principle is somehow connected to the universe’s later developing life and structure, why should it have landed on one of the rare combinations amenable to life and structure? It’s just as easy to imagine a physical principle that gives you only one universe with an unavoidable combination of fundamental constants that was completely devoid of life. So I still count this option as either “getting lucky” or that the later emergence of life was somehow retrocausal of the universe’s knob-setting. Between these options and the multiverse, I think I prefer the multiverse.

I’m inclined to agree; the multiverse is a far better alternative, and it’s the one I would choose if I were an atheist who rejected the cosmic design hypothesis.

There’s also a “proves too much” problem. Basically, the philosophical idea behind an objection “proving too much” is that the type of reasoning leads to absurdities. Consider the following scenario: imagine an asteroid shower clearly spelled out on the moon, “Yes, there is a cosmic designer; I fine-tuned certain parameters of the universe so that this text would appear.” Suppose scientists confirm that there are certain parameters such that if they were altered even slightly, no asteroid shower text would appear.

Here’s a tip: apply objections to the FTA to this asteroid shower scenario and see what happens. If someone says, “Maybe the fine-tuned parameters for the asteroid shower text were physically necessary,” clearly that doesn’t work here for the same reason Matthew O’Dowd says it doesn’t work for the cosmic fine-tuning for life: it’s just as easy to imagine the physical necessity pointing in the broader range where the effect doesn’t occur. Moreover, this tactic does little more than push the fine-tuning problem back a step: the physical necessity would itself have to be fine-tuned to point to the narrow life-permitting range, just as the physical necessity would have to be fine-tuned for the asteroid shower text in the asteroid shower scenario.

Bad Objection #4: Unknown Different Probability Distribution

Objection: this objection is similar to bad objection #3 except that the unknown physical principle makes the life-permitting parameters highly probable instead of merely physically necessary.

Response: This objection fails for the same sort of reason; e.g., this pushes the fine-tuning back a step (we can imagine the spike of high probability going over a broader, life-prohibiting region, so fine-tuning is necessary for the spike to appear in the right place) and just imagine someone applying the same objection to the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario.

Bad Objection #5: Unknown Metaphysical Necessity

Objection: this objection is similar to objection #3 except that the parameters are metaphysically necessary. Where a possible world is a complete description of the way the world is or could have been like, the objection says that perhaps the only possible worlds are those with just the right parameters.

Response: My first thought is that this seems implausible without some kind of argument, and again, think of someone launching that objection against the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario. It seems enormously implausible that it is metaphysically necessary that the relevant parameters would obtain in the absence of a designer.

Bad Objection #6: We’ve Only Observed This Universe

Objection: we haven’t observed multiple universes to observe which percentage of fine-tuned universes are designed and which are not. If we observed that nearly all fine-tuned universes were the product of design, then we could infer design from our fine-tuned universe, but that doesn’t apply here. We’d need to observe numerously different universes to see how many fine-tuned universes were designed and how many were life-permitting merely by chance. But since we only have this universe to observe, we aren’t justified in thinking that the universe probably wouldn’t be life-permitting if it weren’t designed.

Response: Recall the tip I described earlier: apply the objection to the FTA to the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario and see what happens. One could say that since we’ve only observed this universe, we can’t reasonably say that the universe probably wouldn’t have this fine-tuned asteroid shower if it weren’t designed, but clearly that doesn’t make any sense.

Bad Objection #7: The Life-Permitting Range is finite, but the Life-Prohibiting Range is Infinite

Objection: the range of possible life-permitting parameters is finite, but the possible range of life-prohibiting parameters is infinitely large. In conventional probability theory at least, the probabilities of different possible outcomes must sum to one, but in this case this is impossible. Suppose for example we carved up the infinite parameter range into finite regions and assigned each with a fixed-probability: the summation would add up to infinity rather than one. If we assigned them each a probability of zero, it would sum to zero rather than one. So we can’t actually make any probability judgments here about e.g., the probability of the universe being designed given the fine-tuning evidence.

Response: Once again we have a “proves too much” problem. Imagine a finite range of parameters for the asteroid shower text and an infinite range where the asteroid shower text would not appear. If anything, the fact that the range of parameters in which the asteroid shower text doesn’t appear is infinite makes the design hypothesis more probable than it would be if the possible non-text-producing range were merely some large finite magnitude.

Bad Objection #8: If God exists, why is it that fine-tuning exists?

Objection: Couldn’t God create life in a way so that it would exist even if the parameters were different? Moreover, there seem to be contradictory motives: on the one hand, life is made nearly impossible due to the narrow life-permitting range, and yet God made the universe to have life come about anyway. Thus, we cannot reasonably infer that God is the correct explanation of the fine-tuning.

Response: Perhaps God could have created life (of a sort) with different parameters (something like supernatural spirits floating about), it’s just that life would not have naturally arisen in a life-prohibiting universe. What about the contradictory motives objection? Contradictory motives is hardly the only possibility for why God might create a fine-tuned universe: another possibility is that God wanted to create a universe with life in such a way that he left behind some evidence that the universe was a product of design. The notion that God would have had contradictory motives in creating a fine-tuned universe thus doesn’t follow.

Bad Objection #9: Who created God?

Objection: The claim is that a designer (call it God) created the fine-tuned universe. But then was God created via some fine-tuning? One might say no, God always was. But then why couldn’t we say the same for the universe? Perhaps the universe always was, and so we don’t need to invoke a creator.

Response: Imagine someone using the same objection in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario; clearly it doesn’t work. Why? A big reason is that a certain aspect of the universe seems unlikely to exist if the universe wasn’t designed, the aspect in question providing evidence for the design hypothesis. The same thing applies to cosmic fine-tuning for life.

Bad Objection #10: We don’t know how likely it is that if such a creator exists, it would want to create a life-permitting universe

Objection: Even if we assume an intelligent creator exists (e.g., God) we don’t know how likely it is that the creator would create a life-permitting universe over a life-prohibiting one. In fact, we really don’t know what sort of universe such a being would want at all. Perhaps such a powerful being capable of creating universes wouldn’t create anything. So the existence of fine-tuning doesn’t really give us any reason to believe in a creator. After all, if the probability of cosmic fine-tuning given such a being is no greater than the probability of cosmic fine-tuning given no such being, then the fine-tuning wouldn’t be evidence for such a being. And since we don’t know the former (we don’t know how likely it is that if such a powerful being existed, it would create a universe like ours) fine-tuning isn’t good evidence for a creator.

Response: I think there is some merit in this, in the sense that we can’t determine the probability that if such a being (e.g., God) existed, how likely it is that this being would create a fine-tuned universe, at least not in any precise and definite way. Even so, we once again have a “proves too much” problem. Imagine someone applying the same objection in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario. Even if we don’t know how likely it is that a powerful being would create the fine-tuned asteroid shower text given merely the existence of a powerful being capable of bringing this about, the fine-tuned asteroid shower still seems more likely to have occurred given the existence of such a being.

I suspect one of the reasons for why we would think a designer might create the asteroid shower text is that there is some non-negligible objective value for the existence of the text. The same, one could argue, applies to life; it’s the sort of thing a designer might want to bring about. Consider the following illustration: intelligent design (ID) theorists have argued that in the absence of a designer, it is very unlikely that life would have evolved from non-life on the primordial earth. Most scientists believe that such ID theorists are incorrect, but suppose we found overwhelming evidence that they were correct: scientists run calculations on supercomputers and find that the probability that life would evolve from non-life on the primordial earth in the absence of any artificial intervention is vanishingly small, akin to a tornado going through a junkyard and assembling a fully functional airplane. Wouldn’t it be reasonable for scientists to conclude that some kind of artificial intervention was involved, such as directed panspermia? Of course it would. The same principle applies to cosmic fine-tuning for life.

Bad Objection #11: Improbable things happen all the time without a designer

Objection: Improbable things happen all the time without a designer being responsible. For example, the odds that a certain sequence of people winning the lottery is improbable, but it still happened. If I shuffle a deck of fifty-two cards, the odds that this particular order of cards would obtain in the way it does is one in fifty-two factorial, or about 1 in 8.1 × 10⁶⁷. Even if it were true that the probability of a life-permitting universe is low in the absence of the designer, so what? Maybe we just got lucky, like someone winning the lottery.

Response: Imagine someone making this objection in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario; clearly this objection doesn’t work here. Why not? One relevant factor in inferring design here is that the low probability fits some sort of non-ad-hoc pattern (something that’s been called the “specification” criterion) that makes a design inference reasonable if it is unlikely to emerge in the absence of design. Would the existence of life be such a thing? It would seem so; consider again the scenario of scientists finding that it is extremely improbable that life would emerge from non-life on the primordial earth in the absence of artificial intervention. In that scenario, it seems something like directed panspermia would be reasonable. And as mentioned before, there’s the non-negligible objective value consideration.

Bad Objection #12: If life is objectively valuable, why didn’t God create more life?

Objection: Suppose God exists and views life as valuable. Why is there so little of it? The fact that life is so scarce is thus good evidence that God isn’t responsible.

Response: There are a number of problems here, one being that it doesn’t refute the design hypothesis but rather generic theism. But let’s ignore that: the question assumes that life is scarce, but on what grounds are we to believe that? Perhaps there is a great deal of life elsewhere in the universe; our ability to detect life on other worlds is extremely limited. Moreover, for all we know the quantity of life could be almost infinite: there could be almost infinitely many observable universes in the same space-time as ours, each one containing life. Perhaps there are even other—almost infinitely many—universes outside our own space-time region (something akin to parallel universes) each one containing life, in which case there would once again be almost infinitely many life forms.

Even if we ignore that, just because life is one of the things God values does not mean it is the only thing he values. Perhaps God is something like an artist; he wanted a universe with life but also wanted other things as well, such as a vast panoply of stars and planets. The fact that an artist creates a statue forty times larger than his son does not mean that the artist values the statue more than his human son; it might just be the artist doesn’t only value human beings and wants other things to exist as well. All things considered, this isn’t a good objection against the fine-tuning argument.

As an addendum though, imagine someone using the same sort of objection in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario: if the designer values showing fine-tuned asteroid shower texts to life forms so much, why did it only occur once? Even if we confirmed it did occur only once, that’s hardly a good reason to reject a design inference!

Conclusion

Here are some bad objections to the fine-tuning argument (FTA):

1. The Puddle Analogy. This doesn’t work, at least not without some further elucidation about why the FTA fails.
2. If the Universe Weren’t Fine-Tuned, We Wouldn’t be Here. Even if true, that doesn’t really address the evidence for design being responsible for the same reason it doesn’t in John Leslie’s firing squad scenario.
3. Unknown Physical Necessity. This doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, one factor being that it pushes the fine-tuning problem back a step.
4. Unknown Different Probability Distribution. This doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, one factor being that it pushes the fine-tuning problem back a step.
5. Unknown Metaphysical Necessity. This doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, one factor being that it seems highly implausible at least in the absence of further argumentation.
6. We’ve Only Observed This Universe. This doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, one factor being that, while true, it doesn’t seem to meaningfully undercut the design inference.
7. The Life-Permitting Range is finite, but the Life-Prohibiting Range is Infinite. This doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, one factor being that, if anything, it would seem to make the design inference stronger.
8. If God exists, why is it that fine-tuning exists? A possible explanation is that the designing intelligence wanted to leave behind some evidence that the universe was a product of design.
9. Who created God? The objection that maybe the universe always was and doesn’t need a creator doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, a relevant factor being that there’s an aspect of the universe that is unlikely to obtain in the absence of a designing intelligence behind the universe.
10. We don’t know how likely it is that if such a creator exists, it would want to create a life-permitting universe. This doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, one factor being that the relevant effect seems like something a designing intelligence might want to create; consider the scenario in which we find overwhelming evidence that life would almost certainly not have evolved on earth in the absence of artificial intervention.
11. Improbable things happen all the time without a designer. This doesn’t work for the same reason it doesn’t in the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario, one factor being that the relevant effect seems to fit the “specification” criterion and that it seems like something a designing intelligence might want to create; consider the scenario in which we find overwhelming evidence that life would almost certainly not have evolved from non-life on earth in the absence of artificial intervention.
12. If life is objectively valuable, why didn’t God create more life? First, how do we know God didn’t create an almost infinite amount of life? The question assumes something that has not been proven. Second, just because God values life doesn’t mean it’s the only thing God values; he might value other things as well that result in what we see (confer the example of an artist creating a statue that is larger than his son).

As you may have noticed, the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario is a powerful tool in countering bad objections to the FTA. As mentioned before, one tip is this: When faced with an objection to the FTA, apply it to the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario and see what happens. By my lights, some objections to the fine-tuned argument are astoundingly irrational. To see my point of view, suppose the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario really did happen and some atheists used these sorts of objections (e.g., “Improbable things happen all the time without a designer being responsible”) to deny the existence of a designer. I think most of us would agree that these particular atheists would be irrational.

What about the multiverse objection? As I said before, it has potential, but there are problems, at least when we don’t have independent evidence for it (it doesn’t seem to be the simplest explanation; imagine applying it to the fine-tuned asteroid shower scenario!) but I’ll deal with that more in another blog post.

The Argument from Moral Knowledge

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Moral epistemology asks questions like, “How do we know our moral beliefs are true?” and it’s a question that helps theism. What I’ll call “the argument from moral knowledge” tries to use moral knowledge as an argument for God’s existence. Thus a variety of the argument from moral knowledge goes like this:

1. If God does not exist, then moral knowledge does not exist.
2. Moral knowledge does exist (e.g. we know it’s morally wrong to torture infants just for fun).
3. Therefore, God exists.

Where warrant is that stuff we add to true belief to get knowledge (for example, the warrant for belief might be some type of evidence or justification for that belief), this argument claims that if God does not exist then our belief in morality’s existence is not warranted.

Defining Morality

Since I’ve seen some nontheists redefine morality to avoid some of the problems atheism has with morality as it’s ordinarily defined, I’ll briefly sketch what I mean by “morality” in this argument from moral knowledge. Morality has an “ought” component to it (e.g. moral obligations) but there are a couple different senses of the word “ought.” By “descriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is nothing more than some purely descriptive state of affairs, e.g. “If you want to do well in school, you ought to study” meaning something like “As a matter of practical necessity, you need to study to do well in school.” A descriptive ought is any ought that has no properties besides purely descriptive ones. By “prescriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is not a descriptive ought; it prescribes and is not purely descriptive, e.g. “You should not to torture infants just for fun.” The type of morality being referred to here involves the prescriptive ought, e.g. moral wrongness. An action is morally wrong for someone only if they ought not to do it in the “prescriptive ought” sense.

Moral oughts being prescriptive oughts is important because it means that moral facts and properties are, if not supernatural, at least non-natural. There is a scholarly article that fairly rigorously demonstrates that moral ought facts are non-natural when using prescriptive oughts, but here I will give an oversimplified version of the argument. Natural facts are facts that can be expressed entirely in the language of psychology and the natural sciences, e.g. “The atomic number of gold is 79” and “Bob needs an anesthetic to not feel pain.” (Caveat: don’t confuse the natural fact with the statement used to express what the natural fact is.) The language of psychology and the natural sciences is purely descriptive language, and thus what natural facts are can be stated entirely in descriptive language. But moral oughtness is not purely descriptive, i.e. what moral oughtness is cannot be stated entirely in descriptive language (it is false that moral oughts have no properties besides purely descriptive ones). Since natural facts are purely descriptive whereas moral ought facts are not, moral ought facts are not natural facts, and thus however morality exists, it does not exist as solely part of the natural realm; e.g. moral wrongness is nonphysical and non-natural. We can summarize the reasoning (which is an oversimplified version of this semantics argument for moral non-naturalism, and the math for that paper is explained here) as follows:

4. All natural facts are purely descriptive (they can be stated entirely in descriptive language).
5. Moral ought facts are not purely descriptive (it is false that moral oughts have no properties besides purely descriptive ones).
6. Therefore, moral ought facts are not natural facts.

The above argument is deductively valid, i.e. the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises by the rules of logic, and symbolic logic proves this.[1]

Morality is Empirically Undetectable and Causally Inert

Another indication that moral properties are non-natural is their empirical undetectability and causal inertness, at least barring the supernatural. Moral properties are non-natural, and anything outside the natural world causally affecting stuff would by definition be supernatural; thus moral properties are causally inert barring anything supernatural. To illustrate what I mean by moral oughtness being empirically undetectable, imagine a moral nihilist (who disbelieves in moral oughtness) and a moral realist (who believes in moral oughtness) observe some jerk kicking a dog just for fun; the dog whimpers in pain and runs away. Both agree on all physiological and psychological facts, e.g. that the dog felt pain and suffered minor injury. The moral nihilist says, “I don’t think moral oughtness (like moral wrongness) is attached to that action.” The moral realist says, “I think moral oughtness (moral wrongness) is attached to that action.”

There is no empirical way to determine who is right here. Both views agree on all the same empirically observable facts, and moral oughtness being associated with certain physical facts (such as the dog’s injury) doesn’t explain any physical fact. Moral realism and moral nihilism are empirically indistinguishable from each other, though since moral oughtness is non-natural and nonphysical, it isn’t surprising that both the moral realist and the moral nihilist would agree on all the same physical facts.

The dog kicker scenario also illustrates that moral oughtness is causally inert, at least barring the supernatural. Moral oughtness is non-natural and nonphysical, and something non-natural and nonphysical causally influencing the natural, physical realm would be supernatural. Notice also that whether moral oughtness is associated with natural facts (e.g. the dog’s pain and injury) or not associated with those same natural facts, the physical conditions are the same in both cases, and so barring the supernatural, the presence or absence of moral oughtness would make no causal difference as to what those physical conditions will result in.

Moral Awareness

But if moral properties like moral wrongness are empirically undetectable and causally inert (barring the supernatural) how in the world are we aware of morality? Since morality is empirically undetectable, in practice we have to rely on intuition, i.e. it just seems true to us that morality exists[2], similar to how it just seems true to us that the external world is real (as opposed to being something like a dream). But if we have to rely on moral intuition to justify our belief in morality, how does moral intuition deliver warrant for morality’s existence?

Theism has a straightforward explanation: God, wanting humans to have moral knowledge, designed our cognitive faculties (via evolution or otherwise) in such a way that when they are functioning properly we intuitively apprehend basic moral truths, just as we intuitively apprehend elementary truths of logic and arithmetic. Our moral awareness thus becomes a kind of God-given intuitive knowledge.

In contrast, atheism faces real trouble. Moral properties are causally inert in the absence of the supernatural, and because on atheism it is unlikely that supernatural intervention is responsible for our moral knowledge (e.g. supernatural clairvoyance seems far-fetched), it is likely that moral oughtness is causally inert if atheism is true, at least with respect to moral knowledge. On atheism, we have the intuition of morality’s existence because that’s what our brains give us, and moral oughtness being causally inert means its presence or absence would make no causal difference as to whether our brains would give us this moral intuition (nor would it make any causal difference to the evolutionary and environmental processes that gave us our brains). But if on atheism we’d have the intuition of morality existing even if morality did not exist, then it seems we wouldn’t know that morality exists.

To illustrate why, suppose a cyborg knows she has a metal-detecting implant installed in her brain that’s designed so that when a widget is in her hand, the implant delivers a strong intuition that the widget contains metal if and only if it contains metal. Suppose however the metal-detecting implant malfunctions such that it would deliver the intuition that the widget contains metal regardless of whether the widget contained metal. Then even if the widget in her hand did contain metal and she believed it contained metal on the basis of her intuition, her belief wouldn’t count as knowledge. Moreover, if she learned the metal-detecting implant would give her the intuition that the widget contains metal regardless of whether the widget contained metal, she would no longer have adequate grounds to believe the widget contains metal.

In the cyborg scenario (whereby the implant supplies the intuition that the widget contains metal regardless of whether such metal existed), the cyborg’s intuition clearly does not deliver warrant for the metallic widget belief. Similarly, on the “atheism scenario,” whereby atheism is true and our brains would supply moral intuition regardless of whether morality existed, our moral intuition would not deliver warrant for morality’s existence. But since we rely on moral intuition to justify our belief in morality’s existence, it seems that if atheism is true we are not warranted in believing that morality exists. We can summarize the reasoning in two steps. The first:

7. In the cyborg scenario, the cyborg’s intuition does not deliver warrant for the metallic widget belief.
8. If the cyborg’s intuition does not deliver warrant in the cyborg scenario, then if atheism is true moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence. (No relevant difference seems to exist between the cyborg scenario and the atheism scenario whereby the cyborg’s intuition would not deliver warrant but moral intuition would in the atheism scenario.)
9. Therefore, if atheism is true, moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence.

With If atheism is true, moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence argued for, we are ready for the second argument:

9. If atheism is true, moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence.
10. We rely on moral intuition to believe that morality exists, such that If moral intuition does not deliver warrant for morality’s existence, we are not warranted in believing that morality exists is true.
11. Therefore, if atheism is true, we are not warranted in believing that morality exists.

It seems then we have good grounds for affirming the first premise of the argument from moral knowledge:

1. If God does not exist, then moral knowledge does not exist.
2. Moral knowledge does exist (e.g. we know it’s morally wrong to torture infants just for fun).
3. Therefore, God exists.

Our awareness of morality’s existence thus seems to provide evidence for theism.

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[1] For philosophy nerds (and all philosophy nerds should be sufficiently versed in symbolic logic) here’s the symbolization key:

• Nx = x is a natural fact
• Dx = x is purely descriptive
• Mx = x is a moral ought fact

The goal is to prove ¬∃x[Mx ∧ Nx], i.e. that there does not exist a moral ought fact that is also a natural fact, from premises (1) and (2) in the argument below:

1. ∀x[Nx → Dx]
2. ∀x[Mx → ¬Dx]

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3. ∃x[Mx ∧ Nx] indirect proof assumption

4. Mf ∧ Nf 3, existential instantiation
5. Mf 4, conjunction elimination
6. Nf 4, conjunction elimination
7. Nf → Df 1, universal instantiation
8. Df 6, 7, modus ponens
9. Mf → ¬Df 2, universal instantiation
10. ¬Df 5, 9, modus ponens
11. Df ∧ ¬Df 8, 10, conjunction introduction

12. ¬∃x[Mx ∧ Nx] 3-11, indirect proof

[2] I don’t mean to imply that moral intuition necessarily gives us knowledge of morality’s existence by directly telling us that morality exists (though I don’t rule it out either). It could also be, for example, that we intuit a moral truth like, “It is morally wrong for a man to torture innocent sentient life just for fun” and from there we conclude that morality exists.

BuzzFeed’s “I’m Christian” Video

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There’s been some buzz lately over a recent BuzzFeed video of “I’m Christian, but I’m not…” which can be seen here:



This video is evidently about breaking stereotypes of Christians, and I resonated quite a bit with this video. I’m a Christian but I’m not a homophobe, I’m not a conservative (though I sympathize with some conservative views), I go to church on Sundays, I listen to Christian music (including T-mac), and I’m a feminist (when using Merriam-Webster dictionary definition 1 of “feminism”). Overall I liked this video because it fights stereotypes and religious prejudice against us Christians, and Christians everywhere are smiling at how refreshing it is to see a mainstream outlet doing the opposite of promoting Christian stereotypes, right?

Right?

Well, not quite. A number of sources managed to find the BuzzFeed video offensive to Christians somehow, and in a way this shouldn’t be surprising. We live in a culture where being offended is in vogue, and the more we find stuff to be angry at, the better we feel (apparently). But we shouldn’t fall into this world’s groupthink mentality of finding stuff to be offended at based on flimsy evidence. Of all people, Christians should know that we are not to be part of the world[1], and yet we’re evidently not immune to tumbling into the community of unreasonable outrage.

Bring On the Outrage!

To give a specific example, consider an article in The Blaze that says, “There’s nothing more self-righteous than making a big show about your supposed lack of self-righteousness.” Seriously? How about claiming that you’re more righteous than others? Isn’t that more self-righteous than e.g. saying you’re not more righteous than others? And making a “big show” of not being self-righteous is…taking part in a video to help break Christian stereotypes (e.g. of self-righteousness) where you tell people that you don’t think you’re more righteous than others? This is an act of self-righteousness? What kind of logic is that? Suppose a celebrity who is a Christian, Denzel Washington perhaps, said in an interview that he didn’t think of himself as more righteous than others. If an atheist celebrity were to broadcast this “I’m not more righteous than others” claim as proof that Denzel Washington is self-righteous, we Christians would immediately denounce this as irrational idiocy.

Consider the Federalist’s claim in the “Wow, was it bigoted” section:

As the better half noted, imagine that BuzzFeed did a video like this for Muslims. “I’m Muslim but I’m not a terrorist!” The outrage would be immediate.

Why would people really be outraged about a video trying to break Muslim stereotypes with e.g. bona fide Muslims who aren’t terrorists? When I first read this (I initially skimmed the article) I was confused, until a friend at work informed me that some people would interpret a statement like “I’m a Christian, but I’m not this stereotype” as meaning (or implying) “Most Christians are actually this stereotype.” But this is kind of ridiculous; latter statement doesn’t follow from the former, and to think otherwise would be making a remarkably uncharitable interpretation (yet another illustration why people should be taught the principle of charity) and people, Christians included, should not be so quick to interpret people’s statements in the worst possible way. Yes, I know it’s in vogue to be offended, but we shouldn’t try so hard that we’re finding offensive claims in the mouths of people who aren’t actually making them.

Some complaints are so silly you’d almost think the people making them would even find the first verse of “Amazing Grace” offensive to Christians. One of the Federalist’s “cringeworthy” objections to “I’m Christian, but I’m not…” video is “No mention of Jesus,” as if being a Christian and going to church on Sundays had nothing to do with Jesus. Or maybe the objection is that “Jesus” wasn’t mentioned by name, but considering the nature of the video (breaking stereotypes, noting what some Christians are not) the fact that the name “Jesus” wasn’t specifically mentioned doesn’t seem enough to be worth cringing over. After all, the first verse of “Amazing Grace” doesn’t contain the word “Jesus” either; should we find that “cringeworthy” and ignore all the stuff this verse has to do with Christianity? Or is the “Jesus must be mentioned by name” criterion to be applied only to those things we want to find offensive?

The Federalist claims, “BuzzFeed’s viral video is the cry of the Pharisee. Thank God I’m not like those other men!” The viral video is the cry of Christians saying, “We don’t fit these stereotypes.” Do we really have to interpret, “We don’t fit these stereotypes” in the worst possible way? And of course when making the “cry of the Pharisee” objection, we’ll have to ignore all those claims in the video suggesting that these Christians aren’t self-righteous—which ironically was the cause for a criticism I mentioned earlier! The Christians in this video are putting themselves on a pedestal and that’s offensive—except that they’re not putting themselves on a pedestal, but that’s OK since that’s offensive too. I’m getting the impression that certain people are trying too hard to be offended.

Conclusion

I’m not going to say that there aren’t any flaws with the video, but I also don’t think Christians should be finding this video as offensive or cringe-worthy as some people are apparently taking it to be. A non-Christian mainstream media outlet fighting Christian stereotypes and religious prejudice is something we should be grateful for, even if it doesn’t have everything we’d like it to have. The video isn’t perfect, but it’s far from horrible; indeed I suspect it’s roughly as good as we could reasonably expect it to be given the circumstances. For all its flaws, BuzzFeed made what I think was a sincere effort to help us Christians. Think it feels good to be outraged? Try being grateful and appreciative; it’s actually kind of nice.

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[1] See John 15:19, John 18:36, and one of my favorite verses, Romans 12:2

Homosexuality and Romans 1

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In this post I’ll be considering the claim that Paul says in Romans 1 that if you are a homosexual you are deserving of death. But first I’d like to start with what inspired this post.

“Sam Harris gets Humiliated on TV by Hugh Hewitt.”

While wasting time on the internet I saw this YouTube video entitled, “Sam Harris gets Humiliated on TV by Hugh Hewitt.”



In the name of rationality I’d like to share my thoughts on this, because although I’m a Christian I don’t agree with the title of the video; by my lights neither side quite humiliated the other.

Hugh Hewitt lambastes Sam Harris's book but tends to be fuzzy on the details of what specific facts he gets wrong. At 2:18 Hewitt says it's "poorly grounded in history" but which specific historical facts does Harris get wrong? Mind you I'm not saying Harris didn't make any mistakes on history, but when you make accusations of this sort it behooves the rational Christian to at least give a specific example. At 2:22 Hewitt says Harris doesn't "deal with most of the evidence that runs counter to his case." Again, a specific example should be cited. When you make accusations without evidence you don't embarrass the other side.

This is not to say Hewitt doesn't make any good points though. At 3:32 Hewitt points out that while some religious beliefs justify cruelty, this is not the case for his faith--but he could also have noted this is not the case for a lot of people's faith (see my article Religion’s Social Influence for more on this), and by my lights Hewitt should have hammered this point more because Harris doesn't seem to quite address it.

At 7:57 Hewitt says Sam's book is an "invitation to religious oppression" as well as intolerance and cruelty--not because the book itself endorses cruelty and religious oppression, but because one could misuse the ideas in that book to justify said oppression. But this, of course, is true of religion! Hewitt seems to be making the same sort of mistake that Harris is guilty of.

In one sense Sam Harris humiliated himself saying at 1:46 that people are "flying planes into our buildings because they think God wrote their book and that they're going to get to paradise by dying in the right circumstances." All Muslims accept "God wrote their book and that they're going to get to paradise by dying in the right circumstances" but the vast majority condemn the 9/11 attacks as evil and believe that God forbids such actions. Harris seems to be committing a gross oversimplification.

Paul and Romans 1

At 10:41 Sam claims that in Romans, Paul says homosexuals deserve to die. He does? Where? Maybe he's thinking of Romans 1, but that would be another oversimplification. Here Paul is speaking of people who are “filled with all manner of unrighteousness” and full of "full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.” These are the people who deserve to die. Paul isn't saying or implying that having a homosexual orientation is sufficient to be deserving of death, though he does say that God let certain evil people (evil in the sense being full of murder, deceit, maliciousness etc.) have dishonorable passions, among them homosexuality. Let’s quote Romans 1:18 to Romans 1:32 for full context:

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. [My emphasis]

So who does Paul say are deserving of death? Paul says the following group of people, people who are filed with “all manner of unrighteousness” having these characteristics are deserving of death:

1. Filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice (verse 29); and
2. full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness (verse 29); and are
3. gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless (verse 30 to 31); and
4. they know of God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die (verse 32).

Paul implies that those who practice such things mentioned in (1) through (5) are deserving of death, and I think many Christians likewise agree that a person who engages in the practices described in (1) through (5) is thoroughly degenerate enough to be deserving of death. Paul also implies there are a group of unrighteous people who engage in (1) through (5) who are homosexuals, a homosexual orientation being a “dishonorable passion” (verses 26-27), though these particular people Paul is speaking of are also apparently those who worship idols (verse 23) and few homosexuals today fit that category. One might criticize Paul for thinking homosexuality is a dishonorable passion, but Paul having this belief doesn't imply that Paul believes that merely having the orientation is deserving of death even if Paul believes God let some evil people have this orientation. It's as if Harris is reasoning like this:

5. Paul believes that if you are a member of group X (certain people who are full of murder, maliciousness, etc.), then you are homosexual.
6. Therefore, Paul believes if you are a homosexual, then you are in group X.

That's just as illogical as thinking:

7. Bob believes that if you are a Minnesotan murderer, then you are a Minnesotan.
8. Therefore, Bob believes that if you are a Minnesotan, then you are a Minnesotan murderer.

And then reasoning, “Since Bob believes all Minnesotan murderers deserve death, Bob is saying that all Minnesotans deserve death!” Such reasoning is clearly fallacious, but then we should recognize that the style of reasoning is equally fallacious when applied to Paul in Romans 1.

Are We Stuck In Intellectual Neutral?

I thought this was apropos to post on New Year’s Day, a video by one of my favorite contemporary philosophers. In it he addresses the question, “Are we (Christians) stuck intellectual neutral?” In 1980, a distinguished academic and statesman Charles Malik said this:

I must be frank with you: the greatest danger confronting American evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism. The mind in its greatest and deepest reaches is not cared for enough….The result is that the arena of creative thinking is vacated and abdicated to the enemy. Who among evangelicals can stand up to the great secular scholars on their own terms of scholarship? Who among evangelical scholars is quoted as a normative source by the greatest secular authorities on history or philosophy or psychology or sociology or politics? Does the evangelical mode of thinking have the slightest chance of becoming the dominant mode in the great universities of Europe and America that stamp our civilization with their spirit and ideas? For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus Christ, as well as for their own sakes, evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence.[1]

William Lane Craig’s message here is a bit long for those addicted to satisfying their short attention spans, but I think this is worth watching.



By the way, the cartoon he refers to in the video is this:

[1] Charles Malik, “The Other Side of Evangelicalism, Christianity Today, November 7, 1980, p. 40.

Star of Bethlehem

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Much has been said about what the Star of Bethlehem might be, but perhaps the most interesting stuff about it has been put forth by the folks at www.bethlehemstar.net. If you’ve got time to kill, read the articles of this site. Among other things, they say that whatever occurred in the sky had to fit these criteria:

1. The star indicated birth (confer Matthew 2:2)
2. The star indicated kingship (confer Matthew 2:2)
3. It had a Jewish connection (confer Matthew 2:2)
4. The star rose in the east (confer Matthew 2:2, where the Greek suggests the star rising in the east as opposed to the Magi seeing it while they were in the east)
5. It appeared at an exact time (confer Matthew 2:7)
6. Herod didn’t know when it appeared (confer Matthew 2:7), he had to ask.
7. The star endured over a considerable period of time (confer Matthew 2:8-9)
8. It went ahead of them as they traveled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem (confer Matthew 2:8-9)
9. The star stopped (confer Matthew 2:8-9)

From these clues and some knowledge about history, first-century culture, and astronomy, we get some ideas about how the Magi—people who among other things studied the stars—might think they had seen a celestial sign that the King of the Jews was to be born. What follows later in the Star of Bethlehem website (e.g. how the celestial events signified a king) might strike some Christians as being too close to astrology, which is popularly condemned in modern Christian circles. Jupiter was known as the King Planet, which when viewed from the night sky touched the Regulus star (a star that signified royalty) three times within an unusually short span of time, and so forth.

Again, this might strike some Christians as being too close to astrology, but a few points should be kept in mind. Frist, celestial signs are apparent in the Bible. Remember some terminology about the moon turning red (Joel 2:31, Revelation 6:12)? That refers to a total lunar eclipse, where the moon really does appear red (checkout this NASA video; see also this page on the lunar eclipse’s interesting connection to Christ’s crucifixion). Similarly, some believe that the talk about the sun turning to darkness (Joel 2:31, Revelation 6:12) refers to a solar eclipse, or perhaps something a bit more mundate (see this article on this part of Joel 2:31’s possible relevance to Christ’s crucifixion). So there do appear to be at least some cases where celestial signs are legitimate. Second, remember that these Magi folk study the stars and clearly did see a star as a sign that the King of the Jews had come. So celestial phenomena signifying the King of the Jews is unavoidable if we’re to take Scripture seriously here, and at worst it’ll be a matter of degree regarding what is appropriate celestial interpretation by these apparently God-fearing Magi.

Anyway, I watched the video some time ago, and fellow Christians might want to consider watching the Star of Bethlehem DVD themselves. The coinciding of celestial events the DVD goes over seems so remarkable I think it might even be useful for apologetics.


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Religion’s Social Influence

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There’s been a lot of talk online and in books about whether religion in general and Christianity in particular has been good or bad for society. For the latter, an example is the atheist Christopher Hitchens in his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything who argued that it’s been bad. Theists like David Bentley Hart (as in Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies) and the authors in Christianity On Trial disagree.

Why think religion does have a negative effect on society? One reason might be to see how bad things have been done in the name of religion. Well, it’s often true that people who are religious use their religion to galvanize their cause, but how does that show that their religion is what causes them to do evil? Often lost is the effect of external cultural influences. Atheists who believe Christianity inspires people to burn their enemies at the stake should ask themselves, “Why do today’s Christians in e.g. the United States claim to abhor such acts?” Is it that they secretly wish they could do it? No. External cultural influences (such as a culture that values tolerance) are a factor, and we should ask which cultural influence, like that of valuing tolerance, better fits with the religion in question.

On that note, we should ask whether the act done in the name of religion violates the dictates of said religion. If for example it’s written in the religion’s scripture to love your enemies and the people brutally persecute their enemies in the name of that religion, it’s could be that the religion isn’t what’s causing the behavior and that there’s more to the story. What else could it be? Human nature has a streak of barbarism to it, and under this unfortunately large umbrella is sort of tribal mentality and the temptation to do ethically questionable things for one’s “tribe,” whether that tribe be a nation, religion, or some other ideology. Intolerance and bigotry can go under just about any flag, even tolerance itself (I’ll discuss that in a future blog entry).

I’m sure it’s far from coincidence that I’ve seen Christians believe their faith to have if anything a benevolent effect on humanity and atheists believe the opposite. Why are people up in arms about this in the first place? For whatever reason, there appears to be the temptation that what one accepts as true will have a beneficent effect on the world, and that which one disagrees with will have a malicious effect on the world. This temptation should be resisted, and this general truth should be remembered: it is fallacious to judge the truth of a belief by its social impact. I really don’t care all that much whether atheism or Christianity has a better social impact; I care about which view is true, and on this matter arguments about social impact are irrelevant.

Advice For Christians

We should remember that negative social impact of Christian belief does not constitute evidence for Christianity being false. Another thing to consider is Jesus’ own words. Jesus says that not everyone who calls him Lord will enter heaven. He tells a tale whereby evil bastards who have called him Lord are banging on the door to heaven, asking to be let in, and Jesus says, “No, you’re evil bastards; I never knew you.”[1] If we Christians are to take what Jesus said seriously here, I think we need to at least be open to the possibility that an awful lot of evil bastards have called Jesus their Lord. And whether by coincidence or otherwise, Jesus’ words were rather prophetic: there have been a number of people in human history who have called Jesus their Lord yet have done morally reprehensible things. If anything, evildoers calling Jesus their Lord in human history is to be expected. So if you meet an atheist says “People who are Christians have done terrible things!” reply with something like, “Yep, Jesus predicted that would happen a long time ago.” Feel free to mention also that it is generally fallacious to conclude a worldview is false because its adherents have done evil things, especially when the worldview in question predicts that there would be adherents doing evil things. Remembering this can be very liberating; it allows the Christian to follow the evidence where it leads on whether humans have used Christianity as a tool for good or evil; Jesus predicted that people who called him Lord would do evil, and we should not be surprised that this occurred. All that said, I’m rather skeptical that believing Jesus is the Son of God and that following Jesus’ teachings (to love our enemies, blessing those who persecute us, etc.) makes it more likely that a person will do evil, which brings us to the next section.

Why Religion Per Se Is Not the Problem

Consider religion A:

(1)	God exists.
(2)	Jesus is the Son of God (and thus an incarnation of God).
(3)	Jesus died for our sins and physically rose from the dead.
(4)	The two greatest commandments are to (a) love God with all our heart, soul, and mind; (b) love our neighbors as ourselves.
(5)	Jesus (an incarnation of God) taught us to love our enemies, to do good to those that hate us, and to bless those who persecute us.
(6)	Those who disagree with our religion may be our enemies, but even if that’s so we should still love them and do good to them anyway.

Now consider religion B:

(1)	God exists.
(2)	Jesus is the Son of God (and thus an incarnation of God).
(3)	Jesus died for our sins and physically rose from the dead.
(4)	The two greatest commandments are to (a) love God with all our heart, soul, and mind; (b) love our neighbors as ourselves.
(5)	Jesus (an incarnation of God) taught us to love our enemies, to do good to those that hate us, and to bless those who persecute us.
(6*)	In spite of (5), God wills it to for us to kill those Muslims over there and to persecute many who disagree with our religion.

Clearly, whether religion will inspire violence depends greatly on the specific religious belief system. It’s pretty implausible that (1)-(5) will by themselves cause people to do evil; to do evil you’d need more, e.g. (6*). It might be that (6) fits in more naturally with (1)-(5) than (6*) does, but the fact remains that religion B being taught and believed does make it more likely for people to do evil.

That said, is religion B really the cause of the evil action or more of an intermediary? I wonder if blaming religion B for being the cause of the evil is a bit like blaming a meat cleaver for a victim’s death rather than the person who struck the victim with it; the meat cleaver helped, but it wasn’t the root cause. Both Christians who abhor the violence and persecution done by Christians and the Christians who inflicted the violence and persecution accept (1)-(5), but they differ on whether to accept (6) over (6*). External cultural influences (like that of a tribal mentality and a streak of barbarism) likely played a role in favoring religion B over religion A, because given that both groups exist, there has to be some reason why some Christians would follow religion B over religion A and vice versa, and if so at least part of the reason would have to lie somewhere in the societies and cultures that subsumes those two religions. Moreover, (6) seems to fit in better with the original religion than (6*), further suggesting the existence of some factor in the culture and society subsuming religion B that influences people to accept religion B over religion A.

One could argue that religion B being available to be taught and believed made it more likely that horrible things would be done, just as having weapons (meat cleavers or otherwise) make it more likely that killing would happen. I find that plausible, but I am not convinced it’s quite appropriate to say that religion B is the cause of such evil any more than the meat cleaver caused the murder, because external cultural and societal factors are needed for people to choose religion B over religion A in the first place. To put it metaphorically, it’s not enough to have a meat cleaver lying about; you also need external factors to drive someone to use it to kill someone rather than to prepare food.

Even if it’s true (as I think it is) that religions of a certain sort, like religion B, make it more likely that horrible things will result if that religion is taught and believed, the problem really isn’t religion per se but certain varieties of it. It’s implausible that religion A will inspire violence, and it’s implausible that items (1)-(5) will by themselves inspire evil.

Both Sides

There’s also the potential for religion to inspire good that atheists sometimes overlook. In 1930 the exceptionally intelligent and renowned atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell published an essay titled, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? Unsurprisingly, the answer was in the negative, but notice he says this before going into the evils of religious influence:

I cannot, however, deny that it [religion] has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in the early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle the eclipses with such care that in time they began to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.

Russell’s ignorance here is astounding. What about all the universities and hospitals the people built under the Christian flag? Religion has been used as a tool to abolish slavery (it was Christians who rebelled against the historic status quo and quashed it in the West despite how well entrenched it was in the world economy), rally against child labor laws, and promote public relief programs.[2] Even a non-historian could ask, “What about the loads of charity work done under the influence of religion?” It’s almost as if Russell looked only at one side of the ledger before declaring religion’s influence morally bankrupt.

There are many religious charities, and Christianity is not unique among works of charity; giving to the poor is one of the pillars of Islam. In Arthur C. Brooks’s book Who Really Gives he cites statistics to show that those who attend a place of worship weekly tend to give more, and that should hardly be surprising. If you live in a community of like-minded believers, congregating in a faith that emphasizes charity (e.g. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) these sorts of beliefs are more likely to be reinforced, especially if one in the community proposes, “Who wants to help me do some volunteer work at this place that helps feed starving children?” That call to action makes it more likely that charity work will be done; certainly I’ve found that to be true for myself. I’ve volunteered where I otherwise would not have because the request was made within my own religious circle, and admittedly I’d feel a little guilty if I said “No” particularly when I reflect on how little volunteer work I do.

Of course, it could also be argued that religion is also a tool of much evil. That’s true, but to say that religion has on the whole been a tool of evil will require a pretty extensive historical survey of all the relevant goods and evils, and more often than not I see atheists who claim that religion’s net influence is harmful fail to do that. Bertrand Russell, with all his brilliance, is an example of just this sort of spectacular failure.

Conclusion

Religion itself is not the problem; like technology, religion can be a tool for good or a tool for evil. Christians especially should be open to the possibility that Christianity has been used as tool for evil and that Christians have done terrible things, since Jesus predicted long in advance that there would be evildoers calling him Lord, and I do not believe it would be recorded were it not meant to be a sober warning. Whether on the whole religion has been a tool used for good or evil is not exactly the easiest judgment to make, and would require pretty extensive historical research of the relevant goods and evils. As I said earlier, I’m rather skeptical that believing Jesus is the Son of God and that following Jesus’ teachings (to love our enemies, blessing those who persecute us, etc.) makes it more likely that a person will do evil. Still, even if I’m wrong it is irrelevant to what’s really important: whether Christianity is in fact true.

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[1] Matthew 7:21-23. I may have paraphrased it slightly.

[2] Sheiman, Bruce, An Atheist Defends Religion (New York: Alpha, 2009), p. 101