involutedgenealogies:

I recently received an update from twitter telling me that I had a new follower. His/her name? The Deconversion Movement. I found it interesting for a number of reasons. Most interestingly, one wonders why Christians are castigated by pro-evolution-”freethinkers” for using religion as a “crutch” when this would actually be a good thing if evolution is true. After all, if false beliefs help a given species perpetuate its existence, then shouldn’t false beliefs be given a greater utilitarian value than true beliefs? In fact, shouldn’t we cease to even be concerned about “T”ruth? Nietzsche certainly seemed to think so (albeit he did so in clear contradiction to his pantheistic ramblings about “Nature” and “Life” and “The Will to Power”).

You’re alluding to Plantinga’s EAAN.  I’m already having a discussion concerning that argument.  Thus, I find it useless to begin another discussion concerning EAAN.

But I’m digressing from my original intention in posting this.

What follows is the original argument and my analysis of it.

The Problem of Child Murder and Infanticide in modal form:

“P1 Any being that commanded the murder of children is not perfectly good.

P2 Any being that promised to murder innocent children is not perfectly good.

P3 Any being that carries out a promise to murderer innocent children is not perfectly good.

P4 Yahweh commanded the murder of children, promised to murder children and carried out promises to murder children.

C Therefore, Yahweh is not perfectly good.

[After giving some Scripture references in support of P4, he goes on to argue:]

P6 A being that isn’t perfectly good cannot be an absolute lawgiver.

P7 Yahweh isn’t perfectly good.

C Therefore, Yahweh is not an absolute lawgiver.

This is an argument that is completely straw manned each and every time. As one can see, my argument is not the Problem of Evil or the Problem of Suffering — both of which rely on contemporary events.  The OT is comprised of mythological events in my opinion; however, if anyone dares to believe in a celestial ethnic cleanser and child murderer, the burden is on them to absolve him of his crimes — so much so that it is beyond reasonable doubt.  That implies that your explanation has to be good enough for an atheist to accept it.  It is something that you or any Christian cannot do.”

There are a number of very basic problems with this person’s argument, not the least of which is his/her unaccounted-for authority to make moral judgments, let alone absolute² moral judgments. But here I will deal with the fallacies and false premises contained in this argument.

I do have the authority to make moral judgments.  As a matter of fact, I have authority to make absolute moral judgments without god.  The following is The Argument for Objective Moral Ontology without God:

P1 The qualities that make us normal human beings begin to exist in the brain.

P2 Morality is a quality that makes us normal human beings.

C Therefore, morality begins to exist in the brain.

Only a dualist will deny the truth of P1 — a property dualist to be exact.  Property dualism is effectively addressed by employing Occam’s Razor.  The simplest explanation is to be preferred.  Therefore, it is simpler to conclude that the mind exists in the brain rather than concluding that the mind exists separate from the brain and is a property that acts on the brain.  I sincerely hope you accept the simplicity of my explanation rather than identifying yourself as a property dualist for the sake of disagreeing with me.

1. Children or Innocent Children?

Of course, this could be a simple error on the writer’s part. Nevertheless, the argument that he/she gives tells us about two classes of children: (a.)children (P1 & P4), and (b.)innocent children (P2 & P3). This seems to be due to sloppiness on the author’s part, but this sloppiness helps us identify what his underlying assumption is: Children are innocent. This, however, is false. According to Scripture, all persons are born in sin and held accountable to God for their thoughts, words, and deeds. Children are persons. Therefore, children are born in sin and held accountable for their thoughts, words, and deeds. Sin incurs guilt; children sin; therefore, children incur guilt. Leaving aside questions of God’s mercy toward infants, the simple response is this: All persons are guilty before God.

Not only are you dabbing in semantics, you are also guilty of the usual apologetics for genocide.  Moreover, you are guilty of a fallacy in this section, namely appealing to authority.  To quote the Bible as truth, you must first prove that the Bible is true.  It is something that you cannot do; however, I can prove that the Bible isn’t true.  According to the Christian worldview, the Bible is the word of god; my Argument from Distinction proves otherwise:

P1 If any scripture be divine, we should expect it to be distinct from other scriptures.

P2 The Bible does not meet that expectation.

P3/C1 Therefore, the Bible is not divine.

P4 If the Bible is not divine, it could not have been written and/or inspired by a divine source.

P5 The Bible is not divine.

P6/C2 Therefore, the Bible could not have been written and/or inspired by a divine source.

From P6/C2, one can infer that since the Bible isn’t written and/or inspired by a divine source that it isn’t the word of god.

For the sake of argument though, you are arguing from an unsubstantiated variable, namely sin.  In order for sin to be true, Adam had to exist; Adam is a mythological character and thus, the original sinner didn’t exist and it follows that since there was no original sin, sin did not continue and there is thus no sin.  Perhaps you will argue that the original sin is rooted in Satan’s rebellion; however, Satan is also an unsubstantiated character and thus, you cannot argue from sin.  Sin is simply a thought, word or action that offends god; therefore, it is incumbent on you to prove that god exists, at the very least, in order to base an argument on sin.  Thus, before arguing from sin, you must prove that it exists.  Being that your presupposition is unsubstantiated, this entire section is moot.

2. Category Error: God Cannot Command Murder

If the author’s attempt is to show that God is not perfectly good (see, P4 & C), he should not do so by attempting to identify God as a “murderer.” The term is not defined by the author, so I’ll use Webster’s definition. According to Merriam-Webster, murder is “the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.”³ If God has judged all persons as guilty of sin and worthy of death, which He has (cf. Rom 5:12), and God is the judge of all the earth, can He be charged with unlawfully taking the life of another being? The author commits a category error by attempting to accuse God of murder: Because God is the judge of all the earth, and because He clearly identifies His actions as judgments on those whom He has identified as worthy of such punishments, there is no rational justification for the author’s identification of God’s actions as “murder.”

This section has the same issues the first had:  you’re arguing from sin and you’re using the Bible as an authority.  Any being that charges guiltless children and infants isn’t a just judge — regardless of what the Bible says.  I find it appalling that Christians are incapable of sharing that conclusion.

Also, your Merriam-Webster definition describes first degree murder.  It does not define murder in its entirety, but that is beside the point.

3. Absolute Law-Giver Has Reference to Authority, not Moral Character

Having established the invalidity and unsoundness of the first part of the atheist author’s argument, I’ll go on to deal with the second part. This part of the argument also fails, as an examination of the first premise given (i.e. P6) shows. This proposition is confused and, well, false. It is confused because the category of “absolute law giver” has reference to the authority of the person identified as such; it does not have reference to the moral character of the person who possesses such authority to be the absolute law-giver. In the second place, it is false because an absolute law-giver needs only to have the authority to give an absolute law in order to hold men accountable to his commands. This is not to say that God’s commands are arbitrary, far from it! However, it is to say that regarding the logical possibility of there existing an absolute law-giver who is himself not perfectly good the atheist is simply wrong.

This is a straw man.  In your god’s case, the argument would speak to his moral character and not just his absolute authority to legislate absolute laws.  While it is true that an absolute lawgiver need only have absolute authority, that isn’t true of your god.  Christians argue that he not only has the authority to hand out absolute laws, but he is also morally perfect to do so.  Therefore, the argument is designed to argue against the Christian god as the absolute lawgiver and as a perfectly good being.  Once again, you’re dabbing in semantics in this section; unfortunately, that is perhaps the weakest reason why your responses failed to address my argument.  I’ll expound below.

Conclusion

The atheist’s argument is fallacious and unsound. It is fallacious because (i.)it commits a category error when identifying God’s execution of justice as murder, (ii.)P6 is an example of a non-sequitur and, therefore, invalidates the entire argument as well. The argument is unsound because it posits the existence of “innocent children,” and Yahweh tells us that no person is righteous. The argument, therefore, is once again shown to be a bad one.

-h.

1http://deconversionmovement.tumblr.com/post/29145374201/like-roaches-in-a-crack-apologists-for-genocide

2As the propositions in P1, P2, & P3 admit of no exceptions, they are absolute.

3http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murder

Your category error was refuted.  P6 is only a non sequitur given your straw man argument; thus, P6 is not a non sequitur.  “Yahweh tells us that no person is righteous.”  Correction:  the Bible tells us that.  That leads us to the consistent issues present in your responses.  You have argued from three unsubstantiated presuppositions:

1) The Bible is authoritative

2) God exists

3) Sin exists

These presuppositions will remain unsubstantiated and thus, your responses fail.  Therefore, my arguments remain both valid and sound.

I’ll take off my philosophical cap for a second.  I continue to expect more than shameless apologetics for genocide.  Most Christians have truly shut the eye of reason.  Rather than attempting (in futility I might add) to absolve god of moral injustices, accept him for what he is:  a character in literature who lives up to his titles, namely the god of war or the god of armies.  Only a truly ignorant person believes that he exists based on a scripture that’s indistinguishable from its contemporaries and scriptures that predated it.

Note to followers:  the individual has been notified of this post.