Four Quick Counters to the Moral Argument

I've had this project on the backburner for far too long.  One problem I've had with the long form videos going into refutations of apologetic arguments is that they're long, complex, and can be hard for someone not well versed in philosophy to understand.

As such, I've decided to break down the best arguments I had from my long back and forth series on the Moral Argument with William Lane Craig. 

Above is a playlist that contains four videos I've just created, each one tackling it's own stand alone objection to the moral argument.

You can look at each individual video and read the transcript by going to the following pages:

Objectivity
Value
Brute Facts
Moral Duties

Missing the Point on Randal's Sermon?

As these tend to go, I had a response post by Randal regarding my critique of his sermon on faith and evidence.

Randal believes I've missed his points and was vitriolic.

Let me begin the reply by going through his three major points, and we'll touch on the last part at the end.

Responding to Randal's Evidence Sermon

It was odd, but a week ago I saw a Twitter notification that Randal Rauser, an apologist I like and respect, had released an audio sermon about Christianity, Faith, and Evidence.

Since I had a full plate of work that I could do while listening to something somewhat engaging, I decided to give it a listen.

It was absolutely infuriating.

Throughout the entire sermon I kept having the mental image of Joe Pesci yelling “Get the fuck outta here!” as we went from one doozy to another. 

 "You gotta be fuckin kidding me!" also works

This felt rather appropriate, because as one of the cherished Patron Saints of Atheism - George Carlin tells us, praying to Joe Pesci is statistically as effective as praying to god.

Woe betide those who go against Cardinal George

So I wanted to get a post together that goes through what’s wrong with it.

Progressive Non-Contradictions - Responding to Elijah

On Twitter I saw a Elijah, an apologist I've had pleasant interactions with in the past go off on his own created hashtag called #ProgressiveContradictions. He's compiled a list of them in a post on his website.

I was a bit disappointed at reading some of these because frankly I expected better from Elijah. In very few cases did he highlight any actual hypocrisy that could be traced to the larger progressive movement.  But the vast majority of cases were going after the most superficial kinds of supposed contradictions - either interpreting statements in the worst ways, or ignoring underlying philosophy which underlies most of the statements and renders it non-contradictory, or just simply presenting views from two sides of the spectrum within progressivism and pretending that individuals hold both views on a topic that is internally contested. 

Honestly this is some kind of bush-league Fox News talk show kind of stuff that you wouldn't expect an educated thinker to engage in.

I pointed out how if an atheist or liberal did this, then Elijah would go nuts and pen blog posts detailing how wrong or stupid the critiques were. Like lets say:

Conservatives say they're pro-life, but for the death penalty! #ConservativeContradictions

Christians believe their god is perfectly mercifuly and perfectly just, but they're mutually exclusive! #ChristianContradictions

Christians say they believe in a god who is three persons, but there is only one god. #ChristianContradictions

Christians believe Jesus was fully man and fully god, but a being can't be completely two different things! #ChristianContradictions

In each case the conservative/christian can give an underlying philosophy or understanding to resolve these problems. While I may not agree, that doesn't mean the statements are inherently incoherent.

Elijah challenged me to show how his examples were not contradictory, and so that's where I intend to get to work.

Responding to Cosmic Skeptic on the Kalam

Recently I saw an apologist I enjoy interacting with throwing some heat at a video by atheist YouTuber Cosmic Skeptic on his latest video about the Kalam.  Since I’ve got a deep history with the argument I wanted to check it out.  You can view the video here:



In short I think Alex is correct that the Kalam is unsound, but he’s right for the wrong reasons in a few cases, and he makes a few other errors along the way. I mentioned this to him on Twitter and he kindly asked me to expand – hence this post.

Atheism and the Intrinsic Value of Human Beings

During a Twitter exchange yesterday I brought up the idea that atheists could account for the intrinsic value of human beings in order to counter the idea that only theism could account for our intrinsic value.

The atheist compatible basis for intrinsic human value is fairly simple: The capability to value anything at all is intrinsically valuable.

Since some human beings have the capability to value something, those that do are therefore inherently valuable.

This idea was challenged by an apologist and theologian I happen to respect and interact with fairly often Stephen J. Graham.


Stephen asks: "Why is the ability to value necessary for possessing intrinsic value?" (Emphasis his)

There is a response to this question, though at first I should make an important point.


The question is somewhat malformed, because like any question for the basis of value, or why something has value - you eventually come to a terminus of your explanation to which one can always ask "but why does that give something value?"


This is as true for theistic conceptions of value as it is for atheistic ones. After all, even if theists say that god simply is defined as being valuable, one could ask why we should consider a being like that to be valuable?


So at some point we reach an explanatory ultimate with regard to value.  The best we can do is evaluable whether or not we consider that explanatory ultimate to be sufficient.


My Answer

Hemant gets the Moral Argument wrong, badly

It's generally rare that I want to write against an atheist, but here is a case where someone I really like, Hemant Mehta, gets things really wrong in a way that's damaging to how atheists are perceived.

Dennis Prager put out another one of his shitty Prager University videos that is just a conservative hack going through a presentation of the moral argument for god's existence.

Hemant tries to give a takedown of the argument and he mangles it - badly.

This in itself isn't really noteworthy - lots of atheists fuck up responding to apologetic arguments. I've done it tons of times. When that happens, I hope someone comes along and points out where I've made an error and that's what I'm attempting to do here for Hemant.