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| Judeo-Christian Moral Values? |
Dennis
Prager, founder of Prager 'University', recently posted a video on
You Tube entitled "If There Is No God, Murder Isn't Wrong".
The video, attempting to affirm that morality is objective, or
absolutist, coming alone from the God of Judeo-Christian belief,
singularly fails in doing so, is one of the funniest things I've ever
seen, and in which Dennis Prager sets up a nice little row of
strawmen just waiting to be blown down, shows an appalling lack of
historical knowledge, and ultimately contradicts his own arguments.
But
I am going to shock anyone who thinks like Dennis Prager, that
without God, there is no morality. I am going to agree with him,
he's absolutely correct ~ at least certainly not in any absolutist
sense.
"Do
you believe that good and evil exists?" Prager asks, "The
answer to this question separates Judeo-Christian values from secular
values."
Right
away, Prager attempts to play with a marked deck. He automatically
affirms that secular means atheist, when it most certainly does not.
The definition of secular in Chambers Dictionary is given as; "the
view or belief that society's values and standards should not be
influenced or controlled by religion or the Church". I am a
proud member of the Scottish Secular Society, who seek to reduce the
influence of religions in government, law, and public bodies. While
most of our members are indeed atheists, we also have members of
various faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and even
Wiccan. There is no doubting the faith of these people, but they do
not believe that faith should have any influence over government,
law, or public life. Secularism does not mean atheism, and apart
from my example above, this shall become very important later in this
article.
Next
we have to address the question, whether we believe in good and evil.
Well, that depends upon what you mean by good and evil. You have to
be able to define just what good and evil are before you can even
attempt to answer that question. Well, 'evil' itself is a religious
construct, and using that term plays right into Prager's moral
absolutist standpoint. It may be a word we use commonly, but when we
do so, we usually ascribe it to the most heinous acts. Most realise
that the lines between good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable
behaviour often become clouded, but to use the terms of “good and
evil” immediately sets up a binary where there are no grey areas,
and no room for manoeuvre between the two. And that is one of the
fatal flaws of Dennis Prager's argument.
But
probably his worst fault of all in his opening two sentences is
Dennis Prager attempting to prescribe knowledge of right and wrong to
the Judeo-Christian tradition alone, without taking into account many
other faiths, cultures and societies. In doing so he sets up yet
another binary which is not only impossible to defend but ultimately
can easily be disproven.
"Is
murder wrong? Is it evil?" asks Prager, stating that nearly
everybody would say yes, then goes on to pose his further question,
"How do you know? I am sure that you think that murder is
wrong. But how do you know?"
Having
posed this question, Prager goes on;
"If
I asked you how you know that that the earth is round, you would show
me photographs from outer space, or offer me measurable data. But
what photographs could you show, what measurements could you provide,
that prove that murder or rape or theft is wrong? The fact is, you
can’t. There are scientific facts, but without God there are no
moral facts."
Well,
actually, there is indeed measurable data. Society rejects certain
actions we base as crimes - including murder or rape or theft. As
actions have consequences, we punish wrongdoers for crimes, and the
more serious the crime, the greater the sentence. There is your
measurable data.
As
to moral facts, Dennis Prager is absolutely correct; there are in
fact no 'moral' facts. Morality does not follow facts, it follows
the rules and laws of society, and those are ever changing and
constantly evolving. Therefore, as we shall see, what we call
morality changes with them, and in reality cannot be said to exist.
"In
a secular world, there can only be opinions about morality.”
Says Prager, “They may be personal opinions or society’s
opinion. But only opinions. Every atheist philosopher I have read or
debated on this subject has acknowledged that if there is no God,
there is no objective morality."
Except
that's all morality really is; the opinion of an individual, or of a
collective society. This is exactly why every atheist philosopher(?)
Dennis Prager has read or engaged with has rejected (and to be fair,
there have been more than one or two) objective morality; because
study and observation of human behaviour, be it as individuals or as
a collective, proves that objective morality just does not exist, it
cannot exist. It may be opinion based upon experience, but it still
only opinion nonetheless.
"Judeo-Christian
values are predicated on the existence of a God of morality. In other
words, only if there is a God who says murder is wrong, is murder
wrong. Otherwise, all morality is opinion."
Let
us for a moment examine this "God of morality" of the
Judeo-Christian tradition. This is a deity whom if the Bible were to
be believed destroyed almost every living creature on the face of the
planet in a hissy fit; who told his “chosen people” to kill all,
right down to babies, except the virgin girls, whom they could keep
to rape and as slaves; who destroyed two entire cities for sexual
licentiousness, but then apparently had no problem with the survivors
committing incest; who deliberately hardened Pharaoh's heart against
Moses' pleas, and then killed every first-born child in Egypt; who
had a bear tear some little children apart for no more than being
cheeky to a bald man.
A
God not merciful enough to just let unbelievers die and cease to be;
he has to keep their souls alive, to be tormented for all eternity.
That's
the 'morality' of a kind, loving, and merciful God, is it? Sounds
more like the sadistically cruel, merciless, dangerous,
clinically-insane, certifiable psychopath to me.
And
now let me come to the crux of the rest of that statement; "Only
if there is a God who says murder is wrong, is murder wrong."
And this is where I will throw Dennis Prager's question right back
at him. Just WHY does God say murder is wrong? What MAKES it wrong
in the eyes of your God? What explanation or rationale does God give
for saying that murder is wrong?
And
want to know something? Nowhere, not on one page of the entire
Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is there one single explanation
given as to just WHY murder is wrong, WHY it is forbidden by God. It
simply IS forbidden, with no explanation as to just why it should be
at all.
As
I've shown above, it can hardly be a case of God leading by example,
for if he existed, then the Judeo-Christian God would be the most
prolific serial killer of all time. We can therefore take it that
God is a "Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" sort of god. And that of
course feeds right into the circular reasoning of many Christians,
including Dennis Prager: Why is murder wrong? Because God says so in
the Bible. Who wrote the Bible? God did. As you can see, absolutely
no explanation or rationale given.
It
was suggested to me by a Christian friend that God expects us to be
good to each other and alluded to Matthew 25:40; "And the
King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me."
That
is one explanation. However, if it is one, it is again self-seeking
of God. Think about it; a good parent makes sacrifices for their
children, puts their child before themselves, would even face death
to save the life of their child. And while it may hurt the parent to
see their child hurt, at no point to they think of that hurt as being
personal to them. Indeed, many parents may ask themselves where they
failed their child in some way where they could have avoided that
hurt.
A
better Biblical explanation may actually be the 'Golden Rule';
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them." (Matthew 7:12). That would be
fair enough. However, not only is the historicity of Jesus nowadays
serverly questioned, the Golden Rule was said by many before Jesus
and predates Judeo-Christian culture by many centuries. However, if
the Christian wishes to play this card, then that plays more into the
atheist/rationalist/secular narrative than it does the Christian one,
as I shall demonstrate later.
"The
entire Western world – what we call Western Civilization – is
based on this understanding." Prager says.
The
arrogance of this statement is only eclipsed by the sheer ignorance
of history and other cultures. When white Christian Europeans went
out into the world, time and time again they encountered cultures
which had had absolutely no prior experience of Judeo-Christian
teaching, yet many of them had similar societal moral codes, and some
were actually superior to that of Christendom. In culture after
culture, the societal norms said that killing, violence, theft,
cheating and lying were forbidden. Respecting parents and other
elders was the right thing to do. Caring for the sick and invalided
was commonplace. Parents made every sacrifice possible to give their
children a decent life.
The
Jainists of India believe so fervently that life is so sacred that
they wear gauze across their faces to prevent flies from being killed
entering their eyes, nose or mouth. In Japanese and Chinese cultures
the elderly are enormously respected and protected, and ancestors are
revered almost to the status of demi-gods.
So,
if Dennis Prager is so insistent that not only is morality objective,
but it comes from his God, and only his God alone, then just
where did these non-Christian, non-Jewish cultures get their
morality from?
Dennis
Prager continues by stating that atheists can indeed be good, moral
people (Gee! Thanks, Dennis. That's mighty white of you.), and that
there are believers in God who can indeed be "evil", while
at the same time saying of the said good atheists "the
existence of these good people has nothing – nothing – to do with
the question of whether good and evil really exist if there is no
God."
Well,
actually, yes it does. That is precisely what Dennis Prager is
claiming in his video; that without God, we cannot know the
difference between right from wrong. And this is actually a very
important point, which buries Prager's own argument. He states
"more than a few have been evil – and have even committed evil
in God’s name. The existence of God doesn't ensure people will do
good. I wish it did. The existence of God only ensures that good and
evil objectively exist and are not merely opinions."
That
statement is self-contradictory. For if objective morality were
true, then the faithful would know they were doing wrong in the eyes
of their own God, they would in fact be blaspheming their own faith,
but doing so anyway. It's not like Prager is playing the "No
true Scotsman" fallacy here, by saying that the Godly who do
wrong are "not true Christians"; he rather is openly
admitting that some Christians do wrong. If they do so, then they do
it knowingly, and there goes his objective morality straight out of
the window.
"Without
God," Prager says, "we therefore end up with what is
known as moral relativism – meaning that morality is not absolute,
but only relative to the individual or to the society. Without God,
the words “good” and “evil” are just another way of saying “I
like” and “I don’t like.” If there is no God, the statement
“Murder is evil” is the same as the statement “I don't like
murder.”
And
on that Dennis Prager and I are completely agreed; only seeing it
from the different sides of the fence. Morality is nothing more than
opinion, and I shall not only say that, I shall demonstrate exactly
why it is nothing more than opinion.
I am
old enough to recall being given the Lochgelly Tawse for misbehaving
at school. This was an 18", 20", or 24" leather strap cut into two or three
prongs at one end, which was administered sharply across the hands of
an errant child (see accompanying photograph) - and it stung like hell. England and other countries had the cane, the USA
had the paddle, Scotland had the tawse, or strap or belt, as it was
variously known. Today we look back upon corporal punishment in
schools as barbaric, and it is actually now against the law to strike
a child in Scottish schools. Yet the physical punishment of children
in schools was supposedly for their moral good, and based upon
Biblical theology.
It
was in 1976 in Scotland and 1979 in the USA that test cases in courts
established that it was possible for a husband to rape his wife.
Before these cases rapist husbands were considered to merely be
taking their conjugal rights, as laid down in the Bible, and morally
doing no wrong.
Well
into the 20th century, there were still left-handed children being
punished and forced to write with their right hands in the UK and
Ireland. In some more extreme cases in Irish 'Christian' schools,
children had their left arms tied behind their backs and forced to
attempt to write with their right hands. Why? Because the left
hand was traditionally considered 'evil' due to Biblical teaching.
Note that the Latin for left is 'sinistere', from where we get
the word 'sinister'.
Gay
men were commonly imprisoned well into the latter 20th century in the
UK, and some forced to undergo chemical castration. In the USA,
there were still some trying to administer 'gay cures' until VERY
recently. It is only in the past ten years that there has been an
explosion of countries accepting equal marriage.
Into
the early years of the 20th century husbands could beat their wives
with a rod "no thicker than the breadth of your thumb" in
the UK, for their moral good. It was only in the later 19th century
in the UK that wives had the right to divorce their husbands. Young
women who dared to have a child outside of wedlock, or were sexually
liberated, were shunned by society, and in some cases placed in
mental asylums for the rest of their lives.
Those
are just some of the facts of Christian-based 'morality' in the past
150 years alone (and don't even start me on paedophile
clergy). We look upon these with abject horror in this day and age ~
precisely because we are far more enlightened, and because of that,
what we call morality has indeed evolved and changed with time. That
is how it works, people. And if morality is that changeable, that
much prone to evolving, then it can in fact be nothing more than
societal opinion.
So,
if morality is nothing more than opinion, then can we say that murder
is indeed wrong? Yes, we can indeed.
"Now,
many will argue that you don't need moral absolutes; people won’t
murder because they don't want to be murdered." Prager says.
And that really is the crux of it. We don't kill because we prefer
a society in which we are not likely to be killed. This is where the
Golden Rule fits into the rationalist narrative. At the basest
element it is a survival mechanism, which we evolved with, and which
many species also display. It is most commonly seen in our nearest
cousins, the great apes. Chimpanzees, baboons, and gibbons, like us,
are societal creatures who form their own groups or clans. And they
will also defend themselves or even attack other clans or individuals
of other species, they will kill them, and in the more extreme cases,
will even eat them. Hey, we're not that far removed from that.
Don't forget it was once believed even in some early European
cultures that by eating your enemy's heart, you gained his strength.
Dennis
Prager says that this survival instinct is not so, and sets up
another tired old strawman;
"But
that argument is just wishful thinking. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao
didn’t want to be murdered, but that hardly stopped them from
murdering about a hundred million people. It is not a coincidence
that the rejection of Judeo-Christian values in the Western world –
by Nazism and Communism – led to the murder of all these innocent
people."
Usually
Godwin's Law states that the longer an internet debate goes on, the
more likely Hitler or the Nazis will be brought into it. Prager
doesn't even wait for a debate but jumps the shark and goes straight
in there.
Now,
unlike many other atheists, I am not going to claim Hitler was a
Christian. He certainly paid lip-service to the Judeo-Christian God
(just as Theresa May and Donald Trump do today), but his allowance of
occult beliefs in Nazism were most certainly not Christian. And as a
Roman Catholic friend of mine pointed out, if Hitler were a devout
Catholic, he would never have committed suicide, because at that time
the RC Church still taught that suicides went straight to Hell. Many
other Nazis - from the high ranks right down to common soldiers -
however were Christians, and every Nazi soldier had the words "Gott
Mitt Uns" (God is with us) embossed on their belt buckles.
Christian charities in Nazi Germany openly supported the Nazi regime,
as did many in the hierarchy of the Lutheran and the Roman Catholic
Churches. So make no mistake about it, Nazi Germany had the tacit
support of the vast majority of the Christian people of Germany, and
of the Christian churches, who wanted rid of the Jews - rid of the
'Christ killers'.
Stalin,
who had trained to be an Orthodox Christian priest before becoming a
communist was clinically insane. But communism in Russia grew out of
an equally brutal regime under the Tsars, which had been going on for
hundreds of years. Prager claims that it was the rejection of
Christian values which led to mass killings in the Soviet Union, yet
conveniently says nothing of the peasants beaten, shot, starved under
the feudal laws still operated by the Tsars, who had the blessing of
the Orthodox Church. He says nothing of the continual pogroms of
Jews, under which millions were killed or died of starvation or
exposure, in Russia ordered by the Tsars ministers, egged on by the
church. Tsar Nicholas II, his family, his ministers, and the Russian
ruling class lived in the most obscene wealth while people were
starving and/or freezing to death, and the church either turned a
blind eye to it all, told the peasants they would have their reward
in Heaven, or even blamed them for their lot.
And
China under Mao rejecting Judeo-Christian values? Ermm, will someone
please educate Dennis Prager what the state religion of China was
pre-revolution. Oh, and don't forget to add that Chinese people were
slaughtered, ritually executed, or died of starvation or exposure in
their millions, possibly billions, in the thousands of years of
imperial China.
I
could not believe that Dennis Prager came out with his next
statement, which shows a horrendous rewriting of world and US
history.
"It
is also not a coincidence that the first societies in the world to
abolish slavery – an institution that existed in every known
society in human history – were Western societies rooted in
Judeo-Christian values."
Right
away, not every society in the world has practised slavery. There are
cultures to this day, cut off from western society who do not and
never have practised slavery. Slavery was unknown in my own native
Scotland until after the Act of Union of 1707 which formed the United
Kingdom. And even then included not only African slaves, but in the
18th century (white) Jacobites being sold into slavery in the
Americas (as were many Irish rebels). But even then, there are scant
records of slaves in Scotland, and where they have been mentioned,
they have been freed. Australia has never allowed slavery, nor has
Canada.
And
yes, many Christians were very active in the abolition of slavery,
not least here in the UK. And so they should have been; given that it
was Christians who introduced it in the first place, when they went
into Africa with a Bible in one hand, and a gun in the other. And
they did so by hiding behind Biblical rules on keeping slaves as
their justification. Even when abolitionism came along, there were
Christian slave owners and traders who used the selfsame Biblical
arguments.
And
this is an important point. Most western slave owners were indeed
Christian, and honestly believed they were doing Africans a kindness.
They thought that black people were incapable of looking after
themselves, and so by giving them a roof over their heads, clothes on
their backs, food to eat, and jobs to do, they were doing the right,
Christian, thing ~ they were being "moral".
Which
brings me onto America, and where Dennis Prager's arguments fall down
yet again. Dennis Prager insists that western society is based upon
Judeo-Christian beliefs, and goes on to claim that this why we reject
wrongdoing, and even got rid of slavery. But this was never the case
for the United States of America, for the simple fact that the USA is
not and never was a Christian country.
Prager
is obviously trying to have us believe the hoary old chestnut that
the USA was founded upon Christian principles, when nothing could
actually be further from the truth. Certainly, it was and remains
largely culturally Christian, but there is no proof that the Founding
Fathers were all Christians, some most certainly were not, and the
very legal basis of the of the USA, as laid out in the US
Constitution, agreed and signed by all the founding fathers, is not
only not Christian, it rejects all notions of a state religion, or of
religious interference in government, completely. The First
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America could
not be clearer;
"Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances."
In
other words, the USA is not a Christian state, it is not a theocracy
or any other form of religious state, it is by law, enshrined in the
Constitution a secular state.
And
there goes Dennis Prager's opening gambit straight out of the window.
The
Founding Fathers worded the Constitution very carefully. They made
sure that religion was not going to interfere with government or
public life, and they had very good reasons for doing so; because so
may had fled to the Americas to escape religious persecution at the
hands of the state in their own countries. Therefore, the only way
to ensure freedom of (and from) religion was to establish the largest
secular country on the face of the planet.
And
of course, if Prager on anyone else insists that the USA was founded
on Christian principles, then that completely fails to explain why it
took from 1776 to 1865 to abolish slavery. Not only did it not do
so, it never sought to do so, and it took a civil war with Christians
to see it abolished.
Now,
unlike Daniel Day Lewis or Steven Spielberg, I am not about to
pretend that slavery was the overriding or only cause for the
American Civil War. In fact, the peoples of the Confederate States,
disliking how Washington DC was telling them how to live their lives,
was probably the biggest factor; it was largely about sovereignty
(“Texit” perhaps?). Slavery was however a huge issue in the war;
that cannot be denied. Unlike the US Constitution, the Constitution
of the Confederate States was anything but secular, but called upon
the Judeo-Christian God to guide them. The Preamble to the
Confederate Constitution states:
"We,
the people of the Confederate States, each state acting in its
sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent
federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity —
invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God — do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America."
So
instead of the "Christian USA" abolishing slavery, what
history actually tells us that its abolition was only brought about
by a savage and bloody war by a secular country upon Christian rebel
states.
And there goes Dennis Prager's argument about
Judeo-Christian values abolishing slavery right out of the window,
sailing across the lawn, landing in the road, and under the wheels of
a bus.
"Ah,”
but you say, “Abraham Lincoln was a Christian". I don't deny
that for one moment. Honest Abe was indeed a very committed
Christian, and in my eyes arguably the finest president the USA has
ever had. He was also possessed of a marvellous mind, he knew the US
Constitution backwards, and never let his faith interfere with the
enormous task he had at hand. Just as every US President has been a
Christian, and few of them (with a few notable exceptions) have
attempted to let their faith cloud their judgement. They realised
they could not and should not; it would be unconstitutional to do so,
and they could not say they were serving all of the people if they
did. This clearly demonstrates that one can be both a believer in
God and a secularist; contrary to what Dennis Prager and other
Christian fundamentalists may think, the two are not mutually
exclusive, and secularism by no measure means atheism.
The
next bit by Prager is just laughable. He insists the Judeo-Christian
values led to "the first societies to affirm universal human
rights; to emancipate women; and to proclaim the value of liberty."
No,
Dennis. Absolutely not. Wherever you look at the history of
Christian states, you find that they have been instrumental in
holding back human rights wherever possible, and wherever some have
attempted to fight for their rights, the Christian churches have been
one of the most powerful enemies they have had to fight. Look above
at what I said about Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, and the
slave-owning Confederacy. Throw in the millions kept down at heel
across Europe with the express approval of the Churches. The
millions burned at the stake or hanged for blasphemy, heresy, or
witchcraft on the slightest pretext. When the French Revolution took
place it was not only their monarchy they beheaded, but their clergy
as well, who were equally guilty of living in opulence while the poor
starved. The right to a fair trial only came about when law moved
away from theocracy, and became more secular. Secular society
learned long ago that if justice is not tempered with mercy, then it
cannot claim to be just; which is miles away from the uncompromising
absolutism of theocratic laws. It is true that the Christian
churches instituted free schools, originally held in churches with
the Bible as the first text book (an idea which grew out of the
Scottish Protestant Reformation - yes, USA, it's all our fault, sorry
about that), but it was only when education moved away from religion
and became more secular that it really advanced - often against the
teachings of the Christian churches. Christianity has almost always
been implemental in holding back and crushing human rights - and
responsible for the deaths of millions, perhaps billions, in doing
so.
To
suggest that Christianity has in any way, shape, or form affirmed
women's rights is downright derisory. This deeply misogynistic,
sexist religion, which has always treated women as mere chattels of
their husbands, and should stay silent. Consider this: "Unto
the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy
conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire
shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
(Genesis 3:16). That right there is your "Judeo-Christian -
moral - values" concerning women. I could of course go further
and quote how the Bible teaches that women should not have power, how
a husband should chastise his wife, and about conjugal rights (recall
what I said earlier?), and even how a woman should lock herself away
when she is on her period. If the Bible were taken literally, there
would not be so much as any women teachers, let alone state leaders.
You would not have so much as girls working in McDonalds.
Sure,
Emmeline Pankhurst in the UK and Susan B Anthony in the USA were
indeed Christians, as were many of their followers. It be unusual
were they not, as that was the culture of their times. But if you
look at the history of both, you will find that Christian churches
were one of the many walls they came up against in fighting for
women's suffrage, as they were against women having authority.
Amelia Bloomer was against the sexist, wasp-waist corsets which
destroyed many women's bodies, sometimes to death, and advocated
loose tops and the huge elastic-legged, pantaloon knickers named
after her. But another reason for inventing these was that so women
could ride horses properly instead of side-saddle, and ride bicycles
(Gasp! Brazen hussies!). And the loudest voices against her were
those from the churches.
Where
have the churches been when women have wanted to go out and work? To
earn the same wages as men doing the same jobs? To have a right to
family planning? To have the right over their own bodies? To be
sexually liberated? For lesbians to marry? The church has always,
and continues to be, one of the most stringent opponents to these
things. Some churches even try to rule what women choose to wear. A
true story; a very dear online friend of mine was once in a
horrendous car accident in which she almost lost her life. She had
to be cut out of her burning, wrecked car, and spent weeks in
hospital. Her legs were and remain horribly scarred as a result.
The first Sunday after her release, she returned to her local Baptist
church, which she had attended since childhood - and found the pastor
blocking her way and refusing her entry. Why? Because she was
wearing trousers to cover her scarred legs. She explained why but the
pastor was adamant and turned her away. There's those good old
western Judeo-Christian moral values for you.
And
if anyone thinks that Prager University support women's rights, I
invite you to go have look through their vast number of
anti-feminist, openly sexist, and downright misogynistic You Tube
videos.
And
of course Judeo-Christian culture has never valued liberty. Quite
the opposite in fact. Where Christianity has had a hand in law, it
has often been the cruellest, most merciless, most oppressive of all
systems. As I have said above, people constantly being kept down at
heel while the church abetted the rich and powerful, people being
condemned on the flimsiest of evidence and subjected to the cruellest
of punishments and even torture - consider the Holy Inquisitions
(NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition). The atrocities we
see carried out by fundamental Islamists today are very much an echo
of our own theocratic past. The pogroms, the hangings, the burning
at the stake, the support for despotic regimes, the collusion in
slavery, the holding back of women's rights, the suppression of LGBTI
rights, and through the oppression of many, many more,
Judeo-Christian culture has always been at the forefront of holding
back liberty. Yet one more reason why the Founding Fathers
established the USA as a secular state.
No
good Christian moralist is complete without an anecdote to have his
captive audience throw their hands up in horror, and Dennis Prager
does not let us down in that respect. He claims that in 2015 a
professor of philosophy wrote in the New York Times "What
would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching
children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for
fun? Would you be surprised? I was." and claims the
professor continues, "The overwhelming majority of college
freshmen view moral claims as mere opinions."
I
have learned from experience to be wary of Christians using the
argument from authority, which they often cherry-pick certain things,
take the statements out of context, and/or use a biased source who
shares the same view as them. So, given that Prager did not supply
as much as a name, let alone a link, I did the legwork he did not,
and found the article. It was written by Justin P McBrayer, an
associate professor at Fort Lewis College, Durango, and who
specialises in "ethics and philosophy of religion".
Bingo! We have a winner.
And
upon reading the article which Prager cites, I found that Prof
McBrayer is merely touting the same nonsense which Prager is; that
there are moral absolutes. Certainly, he cites a single billboard in
his son's school with two signs which he found disturbing. The signs
said;
Fact:
Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.
Opinion:
What someone thinks, feels, or believes.
That
seems fair enough to me, so what is McBrayer's argument with it?
Here's what;
"First,
the definition of a fact waffles between truth and proof — two
obviously different features. Things can be true even if no one can
prove them. For example, it could be true that there is life
elsewhere in the universe even though no one can prove it.
Conversely, many of the things we once “proved” turned out to be
false. For example, many people once thought that the earth was flat.
It’s a mistake to confuse truth (a feature of the world) with proof
(a feature of our mental lives). Furthermore, if proof is required
for facts, then facts become person-relative. Something might be a
fact for me if I can prove it but not a fact for you if you can’t.
In that case, E=MC2 is a fact for a physicist but not for
me."
Now,
this guy has several academic qualifications in philosophy remember,
and it appears he don't know SHIT. Right away let me say that given
that life started here and the universe is teeming with the necessary
elements for life, then the probability of life existing on
another planet is extremely high. However, probability does
not equal fact, and until it is proven that there is life
elsewhere, then to claim so is nothing more than postulation,
educated guesswork, a hypothesis; it is indeed an opinion. By
equal measure, however unlikely, there is the remote possibility that
Earth may be unique in the universe in supporting life, and
there be no life elsewhere. This is the opposing opinion.
This
is the Fortean position, which I fully endorse (I'm a member of the
Edinburgh Fortean Society). Charles Hoy Fort said it best; “One
measures a circle beginning anywhere.” In other words, unless
something can be conclusively proven, then all hypotheses have value.
That is not saying that life does not exist elsewhere in the
universe, it is saying that is but one opinion which, until proven or
disproven, is a valid position to take.
And
if Prof McBrayer wishes to stand at the centre of North Korea's next
nuclear test, then he shall soon discover (momentarily before being
vapourised) that his opinion that E=MC2
is not a fact is very much mistaken. To say it is a fact for a
physicist but not for him is a complete asshat thing to say, and
leaves me seriously questioning the professor's academic credentials,
or his fitness to teach. It is people like this who lead to
evolution being challenged and creationism being taught in schools –
because people like this claim that both are opinions.
I
could go on about Professor McBrayer's article but the bottom line is
that US public schools are most certainly not teaching that it is not
true that it is wrong to kill people. What his son's school was
doing was carrying out an exercise to demonstrate the difference
between fact and opinion. It is Professor McBrayer who attempts to
confuse those lines, and makes the claim that schools are teaching
that killing is not wrong, when they never in fact said that.
Indeed, it is McBrayer in attempting to cloud the issue, by claiming
that something can be both fact and opinion, who could be said to be
supporting the position that killing is not wrong. I shall leave a
link to the article below for others to make their own mind up.
Prager
signs off by thinking he's scored a victory by saying "So,
then, whatever you believe about God or religion, here is a fact:
Without a God who is the source of morality, morality is just a
matter of opinion. So, if you want a good world, the death of
Judeo-Christian values should frighten you."
Well,
I'm not frightened, Dennis. Morality is merely opinion - and
that's a fact (okay Leslie, quit it with the mindfucks). I have
demonstrated conclusively above that each and every one of Dennis
Prager's assertions is incorrect, contradictory, in many places
absurd, and worst of all, he still does not give any coherent reasons
why murder, or other wrongdoing is wrong, other than "God says
so, and he'll burn you if you disobey him." I am more
frightened of people who ascribe to that sort of mindset.
So
if 'morality' is an ever-changing, constantly-evolving opinion (or
set of opinions) just where exactly do we get our 'moral compass'
from. Firstly, from our parents (there is much truth in the old
Scots saying “Fools and bairns speak at the cross whit they hear by
the ingleside.”), then as we grow the society we grow into. We
learn and adopt the mores of the families and societies we grow up
in. We instinctively accept a society which rejects killing as a
survival instinct, but I believe there is much more to it than that.
Despite
how horrible mankind can be to our own species, as well as other
species, deep down we are in fact empathic and deeply caring
creatures. We don't use violence because we know it hurts. We tend
not to steal, because we have had things stolen from us, and we know
that burns. And certainly only vermin steal from those most in need.
We tend to stay faithful to one partner and don't cheat because that
is a shitty thing to do to another person – anyone who has been
cheated on knows just how deeply that hurts. Despite lying being
part of the human condition, we try our best to be honest and open
with others, because we like to be trusted. We respect our parents
and most elderly people because they deserve it. We are kind to the
disabled, the infirm, the vulnerable, because we know they are least
able to defend themselves and often need our help. Most men do not
hit women because they do tend to be more physically able to defend
themselves. We are kind to and cherish children, even those of us
who are not parents, because they are a joy in life, and we wish only
the best for them. Where people have been denied a decent life, most
of us seek to redress that and give them a little dignity.
We
do these things not because any god tells us to do so; we do it
because of our capability to feel, to empathise and sympathise, to
think, to care – to love. We do it because of who we are as
societal creatures, because it defines us as a species, because it is
who we are; Homo Sapiens Sapiens ~ thinking man.
We
were learning the beginnings of that more than 200,000 years ago in
Sub-Saharan east Africa; we are still learning to this day, because
we are still evolving. We do not need the Judeo-Christian God for
that, or any gods for that matter, because they were never any
part of the picture. As we have evolved, as we have become more
enlightened, more knowledgeable, our opinions on what is right and
wrong, what is 'good' or 'evil', which some would call morality, have
evolved with us.
And
notice that I am careful how I word the above; that we do our best to
be good and kind. Because we are indeed human, and as such, often
all too prone to human weakness and failings. That is where our
greatest attribute of all comes in ~ forgiveness.
And
in the final instance, which is better? That we evolved as a society
to be good and kind to others with no thought of personal reward, not
only because it makes us happy, but because it makes the others
happy, and that enhances us all as a society?
Or
is it because we live in perpetual fear of eternal and merciless
retribution from an unbending God, and thereby see to score points
with him in a feeble attempt to save our own sorry asses?
I certainly know
which I ascribe to.
~ ~ ~
Link to the Prager Univsersity video and transcript:
Link to New York Times opinion article of 2 March 2015; "Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts" by Professor Justin P MacBrayer:
