Right Reason

Do babies come into this world with a natural tendency to tell right from wrong, or is their stance entirely informed by social conditioning? Or is it both?

I’ve blogged in the past on ethical intuitionism, and I had some favourable things to say about it. Properly functioning people under the right sorts of conditions, I maintain, have a (fallible) tendency to form true moral beliefs. I also blogged recently about the fact that children, in the course of healthy, normal development without extraordinary intervention, naturally form belief in God.

What about healthy babies and moral beliefs? Do they naturally form true moral beliefs, or is it all a matter of social conditioning and etiquette? Well, I’ve already answered that question by supporting ethical intuitionism. If that’s a plausible view on true moral belief formation in general, then it will be true of everyone as they develop into a competent knower. But is there any scientific evidence that very young children and babies actually do naturally form (what many of us would take to be) true moral beliefs?

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“Ah, those silly creationists are at it again. Every real scientist knows that evolution is fact, and then these people with no real experience in science come along and bumble through the issues without understanding them at all. And as for those geographers! I have no real time for geography myself, but pah! Everyone knows the earth is flat!”

Ironic, right? Anyone who would say this is playing by an obvious double standard, and they would look a bit silly, to put things mildly. They would be doing the very thing they complain about others doing. Just imagine my surprise then when I read through Lawrence’s Krauss’s reflections (I think after reading it you might be justified in calling it a bit of an outburst) on his debate with William Lane Craig.

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This is the second instalment of my series where I look at Richard Carrier’s case against the resurrection of Jesus. The first instalment was quite some time ago, in May 2011. There I examined Carrier’s comparison of the historical evidence for the empty tomb versus the historical evidence for Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon. I attempted to explain why Carrier’s rejection of that analogy was inadequate. Part three will be the most important in the series, as it addresses the argument that Carrier continually uses to bear the main load of his case. That argument is the argument that Christianity did not need an empty tomb to avoid falsification when it first began, because the first Christians, Carrier alleges, didn’t really believe that Jesus’ body had been resurrected, believing instead that Jesus had left his old body lying dead and been raised to spiritual life in a new, non-physical body. But that argument can wait, for now. In this part I will look at Carrier’s second category of argument: General Case for Insufficiency. Let’s dive right in – As it’s Easter the timing seems most appropriate!

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I’m working on several things for the site at the moment. I’m writing a series I started a while back on Richard Carrier and the resurrection of Jesus. I’ll have a few comments to make about Bart Ehrman’s new book on the historical Jesus. I have some podcasts that I’m working on, too. Good things take time, and I want this stuff to be good. But in the meantime, I thought this recent turn of events might be of some public interest around here.

And now for something completely different. This blog post wasn’t my idea at all. Roy, a reader and supporter of the blog, contacted me recently asking if he could present some questions to me as a kind of written interview for the blog. Sure, why not? That interview follows.

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The problem of evil, both in its logical and evidential forms, is well known to philosophy of religion. Just as well known are a number of theodicies: defences of God, or explanations of why a good and all powerful being might have reasons for permitting the evil that exists.

But are theodicies ad hoc?

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I know, I recently blogged on the Reason Rally when I became aware of it, commenting on the gratuitous practice of assuming that to advocate an atheist or non-theist outlook is ipso facto to advocate reason and rationality. But today something else caught my eye, prompting a question: How much would you pay for one of the best seats in the house at the Reason Rally?

Fifty dollars? One hundred dollars? What about two hundred dollars? Or five hundred?

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There have been rallies in the past of people who would have been happy to see this or that (or all) religions purged from society. Such gatherings, thankfully, have seen a change in tone and tactic over the years. What is being billed as “the largest secular event in world history,” the “Reason Rally” will be held in Washington DC on 24 March this year.

In spite of how often I have been assured by atheists (those denying God’s existence) and agnostics (those simply not affirming God’s existence or nonexistence) that nonbelievers (and atheists in particular) are not a monolith, not part of a movement, not followers of a religion etc, this huge rally, the largest of its kind ever, has been organised with “the intent to unify, energize, and embolden secular people nationwide” and to “give secular Americans an opportunity to unite under a banner of reason and community at a level of impact that has never been seen before.” For those who want to convince the world that atheists don’t belong to anything, the job just got harder!

The list of headline speakers includes comedians, lobbyists, singers, TV show hosts and renowned zoologist (and above all, outspoken atheist) Richard Dawkins, among others.

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