...Continued

<<Luke’s [statement] is admissible in a law court if you can get hold of the eye-witnesses.>>

And herein lies the problem.

Not even Luke spoke to the eyewitnesses. His statements were based on hearsay – and we all know how reliable their accounts of hearsay were back then; especially with the methods they used to document events back then.

<<A legal expert trained in Harvard, concluded after studying evolution for many years that there were serious gaps in the evidence for evolution...>>

Ahhh... The gaps.

Considering the rare chain of events that are required for a life-form to be fossilised, and how much rarer and more difficult it is to even find the life-forms that have actually been fossilised, the gaps really don't bare much weight to the creationist argument. Especially when you take into consideration all the other evidence we have, and the technology we've now acquired, that helps to close those relatively small gaps.

Here's a question for you:

If the fossilisation of life-forms, and the discovery of those fossils, is so prevalent, they why haven't we found the fossils of all the animals around the world, migrating from where Noah's Ark was grounded?

<<...and errors in the reasoning of evolutionists.>>

If you could point me to these alleged errors of reasoning, I'd be much obliged. So far, the only errors of reasoning I've seen, have come from Creationists.

So let's take a look at Norman MacBeth's book:

Here we have a lawyer, apparently claiming that creationism – a theory based on (inadmissible) hearsay – would somehow stack-up better than evolution – a theory with almost conclusive evidence – in a court of law.

Rubbish!

I'm not a lawyer, and even I know better than that.

Philip, there's so much information out there, in libraries and on the internet, that conclusively debunks Creationism, but it sounds like reading might make your head sore. So here are some videos for you, with pretty pictures, that will help you to understand a bit more about the world you live in:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Why+do+people+laugh+at+creationists&search_type=&search=Search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdQRvSdLAs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLFKM886l4Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Ii-dpRrXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnu-O5x_pRU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx5t5_trnuU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2SVMKZhV2g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II3JcUaGWoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDFJviGQth4

Good Thief, your notion that morality is dependant on God’s will goes back in Christian theology to William of Occam, and in Islamic theology a bit further, to Ghazali (or Al-Ghazal). It was never accepted as orthodox dogma.

It has some logical consequences, which I think are absurd. Thus I think that it can be shown to be false.

Firstly note that a version of Plato’s point applies. If what is good is whatever God happens to will, then logically God cannot will things because they are good. To call something good, on your theory, means no more than to say that God wills it.

Then to say that something that God does is good is to say only that He does what He wills. That is a mere tautology.

Thus if your view were correct, it would make no sense to praise God for His goodness. It would make no sense to give Him thanks for what He has done. Adoration, too, which at the least involves recognising and responding to God’s goodness, would be absurd. And the experience of the Christian, of comparing his or her own sinfulness with God’s perfection, and knowing therefore her or his need for forgiveness and for improvement of life, would make no sense either.

Thus I think that your view implies nonsense; hence it cannot be true.

There is danger, too, in adopting the view. It is manifest in the beliefs of Osama bin Laden, that he must do whatever Allah has willed—and whose principles of interpretation do not include the criterion of what is morally acceptable. If God says he must kill, then he ought to. If God says he must blow up innocent children, then that is God’s will, so that is what he must do. He is not in a position to say ‘but this is wrong, so it cannot be what God wills’.

And neither are you. You are not in a position to say, for example, that a reason for preferring Christianity to Islam is that Christian beliefs are morally better than those of Islam.

The only interesting point in the article was given only one sentence!

“The evolutionary explanation for an urge is not the same thing as a justification for why we should, as rational creatures, promote or fight that urge today.”

Theistic arguments don’t say atheists can’t be good; rather that morality is meaningless without the objective reality of good and evil.

Naturalism: biology (blind chance and random mutations) produces good! Biology produces the capacity to perceive the good, not the good itself. We grow in ability to do good - virtue; and knowledge of the good - moral reasoning. We do not produce it, it is independent of us.

What tells me why I should follow an urge to be altruistic?

Why should I deny the urge to violence?

Why should I sacrifice my life for another?

Atheism is useless here. It can't be the basis of a civilisation. Sweden lives off the scent of the cut flower of Christian civilisation. Don't hold out much hope for her (see her secularism induced immigration and demographic crisis).

Its no good to say we have a duty to be rational and that goodness is rational. Apart from why rationality produced by blind chance is trustworthy or worthy of our honour (or anything for that matter) Atheistic ethicist Kai Nielsen of the University of Calgary writes:

"We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn't decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me . . . . Pure practical reason (moral reasoning), even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality."

We know many wicked men and women die happy and wealthy, and many virtuous people suffer terrible injustices often unrelieved their whole life.

Denying the objective reality of good and evil is an astonishingly arrogant hypothesis. Doing good and avoiding evil is meaningful only within a religious framework.

Martin, it is in fact you who are astonishingly arrogant. and ignorant. atheism does not attempt to explain good and evil, it is simply the disbelief in god. that's it. get used to it.

i accept that the origin and meaning of good and evil is perplexing. i may even accept that good and evil is "objective", though i'm not sure what that means. what i don't accept is that referring such questions back to an arbitrary and unprovable god helps one iota.

the onus is upon you, and all who claim the theistic origins of morality, to explain how such a claim is valid, or helps moral pondering in any way. you have not done so. none of the god fans on this thread have done so. and i don't plan to hold my breath until anyone finally does.

Martin,

Statements of facts do not provide moral reasons, in the same way that moral reasons do not create facts.

Moral reasons are themselves a form of rationality sui generis independent of the facticity of a problem.

Moral principles are not objective. Nor are they subjective. They are intersubjective, that is, the only genuine moral act occurs when all participants engage with informed consent.

Likewise ethical justifications are neither absolute, nor are they relative. Instead, they are universal in their procedure. It is not the content of an act that achieves validity, but how the decision to act was reached.

The deceptively selective quote of Kai Nielsen's concerning practical reasoning is correct, but only in the sense of the individual egoism that dominated Kantian philosophy in the eighteenth and and nineteenth century. Subsequent to the linguistic turn in communicative rationality (of which Kai is well aware of) grounds moral reasoning with the intersubjective consensus which is requisite for human consciousness to retain a degree of veracity.

*Doing good and avoiding evil is meaningful only within a religious framework.*

Absolute rubbish. You are the product of your dna and your
environment. If your father had been a mass killer, you most
likely would not be here, as society would have locked him
up. In other words, your ancestors carried genes that
made them suited to living within some kind of harmonious
society, have children and raise them.

Morality is no more then our opinions, but those opinions
are there for good reasons. They assist in our society,
tribe or group, continuing to the next generation.

Its very similar in other primate groups. Those that share
food, gain when others have food. Those that are selfish
get excluded.

So called morality is part of our genetic heritage as a
social species, all trying to survive, live together as a
group and mulitply.

Natural selection in action, over generation after generation.