Audio Transcript of the Dawkins/Lennox God Delusion Debate in Birmingham, Alabama

Try telling that to an atheist. I think you’ll find the same respect and compassion for other individuals (in some cases more respect and compassion than the religious) as you’ll find anywhere else.

Oh, really. Most atheist I have met tend to be bitter unhappy people who seem hell bent on destroying anything in their path that doesn’t agree with their narrow philosophy. It has always perplexed me why atheist spend so much time and energy trying to disprove the unprovable (the existence of God), and seem to be obsessed with bitching and moaning about the evils of religious people. I mean why invest so much energy beating up on things that you don’t supposedly believe in and are just based on fairy tales?

Most atheists that I have talked with come off as intolerant religious bigots. Dawkins and his ilk suggest taking children away from parents who are religious in order to make sure the little darlings don’t learn about the evils of religion (don’t believe me, go read the WIRED article on “The New Atheism”). Yep, these atheist types are oh so compassionate to those who don’t fit their narrow view of the world.

The two statements above are contradictory.

Ok, I'll rephrase the first one.

He acknowledges the golden rule as a universal human moral.

When I say universal, I mean that anyone will recognize what you mean. I don't mean all encompassing and true in any situation. A universal moral, to me, is simply a code of ethics which everyone (every human) can agree. Dawkins recognizes that the golden rule is (surprisingly) universal in that good people recognize and accept it, regardless of their religious creed.

When I hear there are 'moral absolutes', I hear shellfish is an abomination, pork is unclean, slavery is evil, homosexuality is evil, sodomy is wrong, etc. Clearly morals change through time.

I wouldn't say that the golden rule is a "moral absolute". What I would say is that every human can understand and accept the principle - that is it a "human universal" based on compassion and sympathy. Then the question becomes: ok, where do compassion and sympathy come from. Well, they're not that unique in nature. Many social animals exhibit altruism, mourning of the dead, cooperative behavior, etc.

Because those who proclaim that there are no moral absolutes believe that all who disagree with them are wrong - just as those who do believe in moral absolutes believe that those who don’t are wrong as well.

I wouldn't call them moral absolutes precisely because people disagree about them. I would call them your morals.

This is why someone who really believes that there are no moral absolutes (amoral) is a very dangerous person in society.

I love my community and support my community. Why would I want to act in a way that would hurt others within it? I wouldn't want them hurting me... darn compassion!

It’s nice if some atheists want to follow or mimic traditional, moral behavior, but they are under no particular “moral” obligation to do so.

We're under the same obligation you are. You'll get the same tangible punishment we get.

rather than out of respect, love and service to God is a fanciful delusion.

I don't commit heinous acts out of respect for people, not any God.

And, many Christians were attracted to the Nazis in part because of the anti-Semitism, which of course was a Christian invention.

That's a crock. Anti-Semitism existed long before there were Christians and exists prolifically outside Christianity. It is certainly not a *Christian invention*.

Anyone who's a Christian can't be an anti-Semite. If they are, they'd hate the Savior they claim to love and that can't happen.

The point is widely debated, but most people agree that Hitler considered himself to be a Christian. And, many Christians were attracted to the Nazis in part because of the anti-Semitism, which of course was a Christian invention.

Well at least you attempted to cushion your smear that Hitler was a Christian with this supposition being widely debated. Nice try. As stated in another post to you, Hitler was an occultist, he liberally borrowed from every religion and or secret society that fit his plan to deify himself as the leader of the master race. If this totalitarian killer absorbed Christian symbols or stories into his new religion that hardly makes Hitler the equivalent of a Christian. Anyone who makes this type of statement obviously has never read the Bible or the teachings of Jesus. The fact you actually seem to believe this nonsense makes you come off as rather ignorant or a troll.

Finally, Adolf got tired of rounding up and killing Jews so he started in on Catholics and Christians. That is the majority of the people that he rounded up to kill in the slums of the cities of Poland. Let’s see, Hitler liked killing and mass murdering religious people, seems more like a tyrannical atheist to me, but then again this point is widely debated.

If the rape of a child makes the survival of the selfish gene more likely, is the rape of that child a moral act?

Of course not. Why? Because we all agree that we would not wish to be raped. Since I don't want to be raped... and I assume others have the same experiences and thoughts like I do... I can't imagine forcing any person through an experience like that because I can imagine the experience myself. That's what compassion is - understating the emotional and cognitive state of another. If morals describe the good actions (those that alleviate or reduce the suffering of another) we take, then rape is amoral.

Thus, to say that atheists are either moral or compassionate is by the very nature of the statement contradictory. Atheists can be neither — because there is — in their own concept of reality, no ultimate measure of morality or immorality, of compassion or hatred, of “good” or “bad.”

This fundamental contradiction at the heart of atheism is often misinterpreted as an allegation that atheists cannot be moral or compassionate. The point we are making, though, is not that atheists cannot be moral. Rather, it is that they can give no rationally coherent and consistent account of their morality by atheist lights. Atheists, though they deny it, really are by nature moral beings, because they made in the image of God. A moralizing atheist is a contradiction in terms, but he just can't help it.

So, a "strong objection to someone mischaracterizing what atheists do (or should) believe and how they do (or should) act" is, on atheist presuppositions, as meaningless as a personal preference for chocolate over vanilla. There is no logical foundation for it to have any ethical content on atheist terms. I think our point is that every time an atheist makes a moral objection to something he is secretly appealing to the very thing he denies; i.e., an objective, transcendent standard by which such things can be measured.

Cordially,

Of course not. Why? Because we all agree that we would not wish to be raped. Since I don't want to be raped... and I assume others have the same experiences and thoughts like I do... I can't imagine forcing any person through an experience like that because I can imagine the experience myself. That's what compassion is - understating the emotional and cognitive state of another. If morals describe the good actions (those that alleviate or reduce the suffering of another) we take, then rape is amoral.

So there are moral absolutes after all, yes?

If there is no God, and human beings are simply freaks of nature, what difference does anything make? If there is no objective morality, then morality is a matter of personal choice. In the end, it doesn’t really matter, for the entire universe will eventually be composed of lifeless matter. Hedonism becomes the default lifestyle. Without immortality, life is meaningless and absurd. Nietzsche was at least correct in noting that when man killed God, he killed himself. The death of God is the death of mankind.

Maybe, but mostly I don’t think I am a competent judge of whether or not a person is or is not a Christian.

If you knew more about Scripture, you would be. Jesus, Himself, gave guidelines for us to use in determining who could be called a Christian.

John 13:34&35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Also this:

I John 4:1-3 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

I John 4: 7&8Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

I John 4:15&16 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

I John 4:19-21 We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

It certainly lays to rest the lie that Hitler was a Christian.

I wouldn’t call it a ‘moral absolute’ because you take that to mean that some bearded man in the sky told us not to. And that’s why you don’t rape children.

I would call it a universally human moral. No one would come out publicly to support child rape. Why? Because it is rejected by society. Why is it rejected by society? I think that’s clear.

I don’t believe in moral absolutes which float around in the air and are always true in every single case at every point in time. I do believe that our history as a social animal has ingrained in our society a sense of respect and compassion which we use to define morals - collectively and universally in the sense that an astounding majority of individuals agree to the same basic moral code despite their religious creed. Religion does not dictate our morals.

I find it quite interesting that the moral code that most atheists ascribe to to flaunt their moral superiority over Christians, is, in fact, based on the Judeo-Christian system of morality.

The atheists in this country who claim that their lack of a belief in God can support the same moral system that is Christian will fall flat as we get further away from our Christian roots. Atheists right now are riding out the benefits of a moral system established by Christians, but they don’t see that.

As that system continues to break down, the fruits of atheism will continue to be revealed. We’re seeing it now in the moral relativism that’s pervading our country, where it’s inhumane to kill a mass murderer by lethal injection, but it’s not inhumane to kill a innocent baby by sucking it’s brains out because a woman has a *right* to choose to murder her own flesh and blood.

The point we are making, though, is not that atheists cannot be moral.

I don't see how a Christian, and many other religious folk, could agree with you. Atheists reject God and isn't that the most immoral act possible in their view?

I think you must have meant "cannot perform acts which we consider moral."

Rather, it is that they can give no rationally coherent and consistent account of their morality by atheist lights.

I consider myself agnostic, but I'm sure you'd make the same claim about me. However I have a very simple account of morality - people are better off with morality than without. Neither civilization nor society, even tribal ones, would be possible without it. It is the same with many other social institutions, government, markets and the like. Accounting for my own morality is similarly simple, I have been inculcated with it from birth.

But that isn't the whole story. I think there is a real, objective human nature, behavioral traits shared by all, some few abnormal people excepted. Hierarchical social structures is an example. Morality builds upon, or tends to respect, these shared values.

No one would come out publicly to support child rape. Why? Because it is rejected by society. Why is it rejected by society? I think that’s clear.

Ever heard of NAMBLA?

The factual question aside, morality is what society says? Your justification is called normative Which society? What level of society? Good luck trying to derive objective morality from normative ethical relativism.

If you ought to do what your society tells you to do and there is no law above society then by definition there could be no such thing as moral progress and no basis for criticism of another society. Absurdly, a moral reformer would be a contradiction in terms.

Religion does not dictate our morals.

If George Washington had had a keyboard he might have typed something like this:

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

Cordially,

"However I have a very simple account of morality - people are better off with morality than without. Neither civilization nor society, even tribal ones, would be possible without it."

If you are an agnostic then what do you mean by "morality" other than what YOU think people are better off with than without? And what standard would make your morality better than another agnostic's totally different conception of morality? In terms of civilization, the most successful civilization the world, Rome, was completely immoral from a contemporary point of view. People butchered and fed alive to animals for entertainment and sport. Armies pillaged cities and killed every inhabitant or sold them into slavery. The army routinely killed or whipped their own soldiers to maintain disipline. The Romans considered this completely "moral" and their civilization lasted almost a thousand years.

Lennox, a popular Christian apologist and scientist, travels widely speaking on the interface between science and religion.

When I saw the reference to "Christian apologist" I said to myself, "What is the source of this piece?" and lo and behold it's from the website of Dawkin himself.

Whatever.

Also notice that Dawkin, "The Rotweiler Of Darwin" only needs one letter added and one letter dropped and, wala, "Darwin"

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