Nor is an idea false because it appeals; in fact, it may be because we’re made in the image of God that humans are so religious! (See Clifford Williams’ *Existential Reasons for Belief in God* on this.)

I guess if you think that practices like abortion, producing/viewing pornography, prostitution, engaging in sex outside of marriage, and the like are morally permissible (which a lot of my atheist friends do), you may have a point!

Steve, thanks for your post. For Hitler, yes, he was a god unto himself. Consider a Hitler Youth song:

We are the happy Hitler Youth;
We have no need for Christian virtue;
For Adolf Hitler is our intercessor
And our redeemer.
No priest, no evil one
Can keep us
From feeling like Hitler’s children.
No Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!
Away with incense and holy water pots.

Much has to do with how “in the name of atheism” should be understood, and it is this: consistently living out the tenets of an atheistic worldview—something Stalin, Ceaucescu, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-tung did quite consistently. Professing Christians complicit in atrocities are not consistently living out their worldview.

I never said anything about the Chinese in the Middle Ages, and, for my purposes, this is neither here nor there. Whatever you think of D’Souza, the ad hominem is neither here nor there either.

In addition, an idea isn’t true simply because it appeals to you, or false simply because it does not.

Atheists are no less ethical in practice than Christians are, and are arguably more so.

“all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades. . . . . Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.”

Hitler may or may not have been a Christian, but he certainly was a mystic with a god complex. Do you throw him in with the atheists because you don’t like him? He did not kill “in the name of atheism.” Neither did Stalin.

On the other hand, Christianity and belief in God did not stop millions of Hitler’s willing accomplices from carrying out Hitler’s “final solution.” Nor did it stop Christians from persecuting Jews for 2000 years in Europe, when they took a break from slaughtering one another.

Meanwhile, what were the Chinese doing during Europe’s lengthy Dark Ages?

D’Sousa is thoroughly dishonest. It’s difficult to make the case that he just doesn’t know any better. He is a busy political and religious propagandist.

Jason,

If “human nature” isn’t a meaningful concept, is “divine nature” more meaningful? How about simply “the ability to make choices based upon reasons”?

You ask, “What makes gassing Jews objectively wrong without an outside judge?” But I’m asking how it is that an outside judge makes the activity wrong. I can see how a king might coerce a person to act in a certain way, but how does a king have the authority to define one’s moral duty. It seems that a king can use his power to determine what is prudent for others, but not what is moral. It’s precisely the “deontological” aspect that I’m asking you to explain.

You write, “Your purpose in writing that sentence is essentially pointless.” Are you disagreeing just to disagree?! How does the fact that something will be without “meaning in ten thousand years time” show that it is without meaning or point now?

Peace

What is human nature? Since “human nature” doesn’t seem to be any meaningful concept except what human beings choose to do then agreement is as close as you’ll get. What makes gassing Jews objectively wrong without an outside judge? You can say you don’t like it, but then I don’t like avocado.

God has the power of any King to rule, and the right of any creator to decide how His creation should act.

Christian morality is deontological, that is derived from our obligation to God, so we seek to abide by His will. It has nothing to do with Hell.

Your purpose in writing that sentence is essentially pointless. In transcendent terms in 70 years time almost everyone who may have read it will be dead. A forgotten page on a forgotten site. Your purpose is entirely ephemeral. My purpose is to serve God, a duty that will still have meaning in ten thousand years time and going on to eternity.

But Jason, I wasn’t asking whether objective moral values could be grounded in human agreement, but in human nature.

You say, “Objective moral values can be rooted in God, because He possesses the power to judge, the authority to declare what is right.” But this doesn’t appear to answer my question in any insightful way, since my question is essentially: “what gives God the ‘power to judge’ or the ‘authority to declare what is right’?” Let’s both agree that God created us and can send us to Hell if He wishes. But how would these features (or any others) give God the authority to define our moral duties? Or: why, morally speaking, must I obey God?

Finally, do you suppose that Provine really thinks that human beings don’t have purposes (such as my purpose in writing this sentence)? I’m suggesting that we should try to interpret the biologists more charitably.

Thank you, nonetheless, for your thoughts.

Objective moral values cannot be rooted in human nature, precisely because if we have disagreement then there is no one to stand outside and judge who is right.

If a someone says that gassing Jews is right, and another says that gassing Jews is wrong, who is right? If someone says that killing babies in the womb is wrong and another says that it is right, which one is correct?

Objective moral values can be rooted in God, because He possesses the power to judge, the authority to declare what is right, and the constant nature that means He’s not going to change the rules from moment to moment.

William Provine has said “Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”

It appears that he agrees with Dawkins.

Dear Dr. Copan,

I have a comment and then three closely related questions.

You quote Dawkins: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”

Surely Dawkins doesn’t mean that currently there is no design or purpose in the universe. He presumably means only that what we currently find arose from a universe without design or purpose. But now that there are people, there surely are the designs and purposes (e.g., my design and purposes in writing this sentence). Thus, we shouldn’t automatically take this quote to mean that there is currently neither evil nor good. Just as design and purpose might arise from people, so also might good and evil.

You write: “biblical theism, with its emphasis on God’s creating humans in his image, is our best hope for grounding objective moral values and human dignity and worth.”

What is it about God that makes God our best hope in these matters? If objective moral values and human worth cannot be grounded in our own nature, why would the introduction of a divine nature be of any help? Moreover, why think in the first place that objective moral values stand in need of an external grounding?

Thank you