Right Reason

Out of concern that a Christian apologist was not responding fairly or charitably to him, John Loftus recently brought to my attention his comments about a man who prominently placed the ten commandments on his property, a move that some in his community called “courageous.” John’s comments are HERE.

Loftus doesn’t think there’s anything courageous about displaying the ten commandments on one’s own property because that’s a constitutional right. I don’t know about that. The fact is there may be any number of things that a person has a right to do but for which there may be negative consequences such as social pressure, ridicule, even in some cases vandalism and violence. Posting something as overt as this in a prominent location could easily attract discrimination in various forms, so there may well be something courageous to it (being unfamiliar with the community in which this took place, I can’t say for sure).

But it’s John’s apparent criticism of displaying the ten commandments that caught my attention. In spite of the fairly good education in Christian thought that John has, his comments about the ten commandments struck me as fairly dismissive and at times superficial. The first quick comment, although not developed or substantiated, is that there are three versions of the ten commandments, versions that disagree. This is not a new claim, others have made it, but it is not a substantiated claim. The three versions, says Loftus, are in Exodus 20, Exodus 34, and Deuteronomy 5. The claim is that Exodus 20 and Exodus 34 present conflicting versions of the ten commandments. This is highly dubious for two reasons. The first reason is that Exodus 34 is in fairly close proximity to Exodus 20, and the writer of the narrative portrays God in verse 34 saying: “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” The thesis here is that the writer or editor of this narrative apparently did not realise what was in the ten commandments as listed in Exodus 20 just chapters earlier, so came up with a list of instructions (very few – not ten), and called them the ten commandments. Ancients were not morons. Secondly however, a more obvious response is to actually look at Exodus 34 and note that the ten commandments are not spelled out at all, let alone in conflict with the list of commandments that recently appeared in chapter 20. What we do see in Exodus 34 are four groups of rules that God told Moses to write down (verse 27 where God says “write these words”). However the same chapter, as noted earlier indicates that the ten commandments were written by God. Why these other groupings of rules are placed here in the narrative as well I do not profess to know, but the suggestion that not only was the writer or editor so dull that he did not realise that within the space of a few chapters he had two conflicting versions of the commandments, but that within a few short verses he had two conflicting accounts of who wrote those commandments, is a stretch.

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This coming Wednesday the 6th of May I’m flying up to Auckland for a week. I’ll be staying with my friends Matt and Mads from the M and M blog.

On Tuesday the 12th of May before flying home I’ll be speaking at the Auckland branch of Thinking Matters. The subject of the talk will be Religion in the Public Square. Here’s the short story:

According to a number of influential thinkers, it is wrong for citizens to support policies because of their religious convictions because this would make those policies unjustified in a liberal democracy. Is this true?

Dr Peoples argues that the rules used to exclude such policies are simply not workable or reasonable. He explains that more sensible and fair models of public justification do in fact permit us to promote policies that we hold on the basis of our religious convictions. However, when the architects of these improved models realise that they have now opened the door to religious participation in public life, they change the rules, shifting the goalpost and inventing special exceptions in order to maintain that those with religious convictions should keep them out of the public square.

Location: Lecture Room 2, Laidlaw College, 80 Central Park Drive, Henderson, West Auckland

Time: 7:30pm, Tuesday the 12th of May

On a related note – Episode 27 , the second part in my podcast series on philosophy of mind, isn’t finished yet. I’m going to have to put it on hold until I get back.

For those of you who are Facebook users, feel free to add me as a friend there. Be warned, I am seldom to be taken too seriously there! My Facebook name is “Glenn Andrew Peoples” of New Zealand.

I’m a bit of a fan of the moral argument for the existence of God.  I think that theism provides a foundation for moral truth. There are a few ways that Christians have made this argument, but the model that I have settled on is a divine command theory of ethics, where moral right and wrong is determined by the commands or will of God.

Raymond Bradley isn’t a fan of the moral argument. Not at all. I know, infidels.org hasn’t exactly built up a reputation for stellar or fair minded scholarship in the philosophy of religion, but bear with me. Not only does Bradley not buy the moral argument, he also thinks that Christian theism, if true, would fail to provide a basis for moral truth. He goes even further: Christians find themselves in an unavoidable contradiction.  Observe:

[T]heists are confronted with a logical quandary which strikes at the very heart of their belief that the God of Scripture is holy. They cannot, without contradiction, believe all four of the statements:

(1) Any act that God commits, causes, commands, or condones is morally permissible.
(2) The Bible reveals to us many of the acts that God commits, causes, commands, and condones.
(3) It is morally impermissible for anyone to commit, cause, command, or condone, acts that violate our moral principles.
(4) The Bible tells us that God does in fact commit, cause, command, or condone, acts that violate our moral principles.

The trouble is that these statements form an inconsistent tetrad such that from any three one can validly infer the falsity of the remaining one. Thus, one can coherently assert (1), (2), and (3) only at the cost of giving up (4); assert (2), (3), and (4) only at the cost of giving up (1); and so on.
The problem for a theist is to decide which of these four statements to give up in order to preserve the minimal requirement of truth and rationality, viz., logical consistency. After all, if someone has contradictory beliefs then their beliefs can’t all be true. And rational discussion with persons who contradict themselves is impossible; if contradictions are allowed then anything goes.

Let’s have a look for this contradiction.

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Thomas Talbott is Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

One of Dr Talbott’s online activities is as a scholar in residence at The Evangelical Universalist (along with Gregory MacDonald). Talbott (I hope he won’t object to me just referring to him by last name) is a proponent of universal salvation, the view that everyone who has ever lived and will ever live shall, at some point, be reconciled to God, trust in Him and enjoy eternal life as a redeemed child of God. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t share this view (click the “heaven and hell” category to see what  I mean).

One thing that’s done at the Evangelical Universalist is that a guest is invited to have a one on one dialogue with Dr MacDonald or Dr Talbott on a subject, and when they’re done, questions are invited from onlookers. At the moment Dr Joel Green from Fuller Theological Seminary is in discussion with Dr MacDonald on Universalism and the issue of free will. I’ve been asked to take part in a discussion with Dr Talbott. I’m not sure that the subject has been hammered into shape yet, but my guess is that it will be something involving universalism (no surprise there) and annihilationism. We’ll see how it shapes up and I’ll let you know when it’s about to take place.

Glenn Peoples

A couple of nights ago on TV I watched with interest a news story about the actions of a group in Papatoetoe, Auckland, called “Papatoetoe Reclaiming Our Streets” (PRO). You can see the story yourself here.

It’s a group that has been patrolling the streets, telling street sex workers in Papatoetoe that their trade is not welcome on the streets, that it is immoral, that it is disgusting, making fun of them, telling clients that they are “sleazy,” taking note of the car registrations of clients and sending letters to their homes, letters that warn of the risks associated with street workers. PROS does not take part in violence or force of any kind against those involved.

In response to the public reaction and fresh attention drawn to the plight of their neighbourhood, PROS has agreed to put their activities on hold for a month.

Depending on what your thoughts are about freedom, you might look at PROS and think “what judgemental busybodies, they have no right to do that!” By that I mean, if you do not believe in liberty, you might think that. What’s more, if you’re not a believer in liberty, my saying that might surprise you. Perhaps you thought that it was the people who might side with PROS who don’t believe in liberty. If you did, you were wrong.

When the Prostitution Reform Bill was passed into law, one of its key proponents, Labour MP Chris Carter announced that it was a positive step in ushering in a “good free liberal society.” If he really meant what he said and liberty is his thing, I don’t expect to see him trying to silence anyone over this. Here’s why:

If you don’t believe in liberty for those people that you don’t like or agree with, then you don’t believe in liberty at all.

Just think how absurd it would be to say that you’re such a liberty lover that you’re prepared to let a man dress as a woman and perform whatever sex acts are requested of him by a paying married man with a faithful wife and three kids in some dark alley in Papatoetoe, but you’re not prepared to let someone open her mouth and express to those involved what she thinks about it all.

The loudest supporters of the supposedly liberty loving party that made prostitution legal in this country have, it seems, not yet managed to wrap their heads around the concept of liberty. Here’s an absolute howler from John Kingi at their website:

While I sympathize with the residents who may or may not have been affected by the prostitutes and their clients, this is not the way we as a society want to go about settling our differences! Mocking and abusing those less fortunate? Abusing people’s legal rights! Making moral judgments without knowing the full facts! It reeks of a time long gone and I for one will definitely be writing to this group to express my outrage and I hope many of you watch the video via TVNZ on Demand and condemn this as well!

So let’s see, this person admits to not knowing how much local residents may have been affected by what happens on these streets, expresses apparent shock at the fact that people would make “moral judgements” about people without knowing the full facts (just what type of facts Mr Kingi might be alluding to, he does not say), and then after making his own moral position clear announces that he is going to make a strong moral judgement in writing to this group and urges others to make the same moral judgement.

I have to wonder whether this poor guy even realises what a moral judgement is. One thing is clear about the outrage I’m seeing. The people behind the outrage don’t really want a liberal society – that is, one where everybody has liberty. What they want is an anti-conservative climate where their moral judgements are cushioned from criticism and the views of those who disagree with them are anathematised. Why are they so afraid of letting the free market of ideas sort this one out?

In saying all of this, I’m not saying that I think open slather prostitution is alright, harmless, victimless or even that it’s the kind of thing that the principle of liberty should allow. I make absolutely no comment on that here. My point is just that these folk attacking PROS apparently do think that. Sorry folks, you can’t have it both ways.

Glenn Peoples

Julian Baggini is an atheist who’s quite happy for people to know about it. I wish he weren’t, but hey, whatcha gonna do?

Recently Baggini has commented on the embarrassing spectacle that is the “new atheism,” a movement marked by volume and vehemence rather than substance and insight, spearheaded by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, unconcerned by the need to study or understand the target of it’s frothing at the mouth, tub thumping tirades and wide eyed cheering, stomping and whooping from its young zealous audiences at speaking engagements that would easily pass for “God sucks” rallies.

I think that in a relatively short space, Baggini was exactly right and exactly wrong. He’s right about the new atheism. he says:

What [another writer’s opinion piece] revealed is the negative perception people have of the godless hordes, and the New Atheism must share responsibility for creating its own caricature. You can’t publish and lionise books and TV series with titles like The God Delusion, God is Not Great and The Root of All Evil? and then complain when people think you are anti-religious zealots.

This can’t be dismissed as “mere perception”. Appearances count, which is why those able to present a more agreeable face have come to dominate the moderate middle ground, even if their arguments are often vapid and shallow.

and:

Perhaps a period of New Atheist exuberance was necessary. At least it got people thinking, although I fear it has confirmed every negative stereotype about it.

Indeed. If ever conservative Christians needed to be encouraged to think that atheism is as much a fanatical sect as any other, the new atheists have given it to them on a silver platter.

Now, along the way, Baggini reveals the odd bit of ignorance of his own here and there. In arguing that historically, religious people have indeed cared about the truth of their beliefs, he asks, “Did doctrinal differences about Christ’s divinity have no role in Rome’s split from the Orthodox church?” Well actually – no they didn’t The divinity of Christ was a dispute primarily associated with the Arian controversy, not the split of Rome from the East. But such errors are excusable coming from someone who doesn’t set himself up as an expert in the subject, unlike the targets of his criticism.

But he manages to go quite wrong in a different way. One of Baggini’s stated goals is to encourage atheists to challenge fluffy liberal religious people to snap out of it and realise that the truth value of a religion really matters. He says:

Liberal believers and agnostics get away with this nonsense because religious belief is much more than a matter of doctrine, and practice can be as important, or more so. So while the atheists destroy simplistic, traditional creeds and dance on the ruins, much of the rest of the religious edifice remains intact. The fluffy brigade are then free to plant their flag on it unchallenged.

Atheists need to challenge these liberal theologians, so that they admit their vision of doctrine-lite faith is not a description of how true religion always was, but a manifesto for how it should be. If they do that and succeed, then good luck to them. I don’t care if people want to retain a sense of being religious, as long as what they believe stands up to intellectual scrutiny. Atheism needs critical friends as well as true non-believers, so that it is subjected to such scrutiny itself.

Perhaps a period of New Atheist exuberance was necessary. At least it got people thinking, although I fear it has confirmed every negative stereotype about it. We now need to turn down the volume and engage in a real conversation about what of value is left of religion once its crude superstitions are swept away.

The impression I get from the article as a whole is that he thinks that truth oriented Christianity with a belief in its own serious intellectual defensibility is really on the wane, and liberal religion has stepped in to fill the void, trying to keep the religious flame burning now that we can’t go around taking it intellectually serious any more due to the fact that astute atheists have torn it down and are dancing on the ruins.

Baggini is the editor of “the Philosopher’s magazine” according to the article I’m quoting from, but I have to think that he spends very little time staying abreast of the literature in analytical philosophy of religion, and he surely has no exposure to actual intellectual exchanges between Christian scholars and their critics. He probably does, but this piece does not reflect any such awareness. In those fields in particular, it is precisely the type of religion that Baggini thinks is in ruins that is postiviely thriving. The top journals in philosophy of religion are no longer dominated by sceptics but by believers. Within academia at least, what the world has witnessed is a resurgence of religious faith: Conservative, truth-oriented religious faith that is prepared to not only defend itself but actually take the intellectual fight to the naysayers.

But the article was half good.

Glenn Peoples