Jerry Coyne on Goodness without God
(Originally published on 17 October 2011) Jerry Coyne recently wrote an op-ed in USA Today entitled, “As Atheists Know, You Can Be Good Without God.” Christian philosopher Matt Flanagan wrote an excellent critique, not of Coyne’s claim that nonbelievers can be good without God (which Flanagan grants), but of pretty much everything else Coyne wrote … Jerry Coyne on Goodness without God
Bibliography on Arguments for Atheism
(redated post originally published on 7 November 2011) The purpose of this bibliography is to provide a comprehensive listing of academic resurces which contain presentations, formulations, or defenses of various arguments for atheism. The bibliography currently omits any references to resources which criticize those arguments; I hope to fix that in the future as time … Bibliography on Arguments for Atheism
Open Combox for Debating Objective Morality
Feel free to debate in the combox as your heart desires. I have just one suggestion: make sure you clearly define your terms. Notoriously polysemous words to define include
Divine Commands and Informative Identity
Last week I had an exchange with Matthew Flannagan on divine command theory (DCT) in the comments section of the post “Does William Lane Craig Actually Believe in Evil?” I raised some standard Euthyphro-type objections and asked for his response. He graciously replied even though he has treated the topic in much greater depth and … Divine Commands and Informative Identity
Craig, Koons, and Divine Command Theory
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Taylor Carr republished on The Secular Outpost with permission. The original post may be found on his blog, The Godless Skeptic. In a recent episode of the Reasonable Faith podcast, William Lane Craig offers his thoughts on a 2012 paper by Jeremy Koons, Can God’s Goodness Save the Divine Command Theory from Euthyphro? Koons’ paper is another … Craig, Koons, and Divine Command Theory
A Moral Argument for God which Begs the Question against Theists
Reposting a comment I left on fellow Patheos blogger Bob Seidensticker’s blog, Cross Examined. Bob was writing about Geisler’s and Turek’s book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Bob quoted this passage from their book: If the atheists are right, then we might as well lie, cheat, and steal to get what we want … A Moral Argument for God which Begs the Question against <I>Theists</I>
Kai Nielsen on Natural Law and Divine Command Theory
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Taylor Carr republished on The Secular Outpost with permission. The original post may be found on his blog, The Godless Skeptic. It’s common to hear theists make the claim that there cannot be a moral law without a moral law-giver. C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, and several other prominent defenders of the Christian faith … Kai Nielsen on Natural Law and Divine Command Theory
Charles Pidgen on the So-Called “Naturalistic Fallacy” in Meta-Ethics
A common objection to reductive moral naturalism (aka ‘ethical naturalism’) is the so-called “naturalistic fallacy.” This fallacy comes into flavors: logical and semantical. The Logical Form This version of the naturalistic fallacy is normally referred to as the is-ought fallacy, the fact-value fallacy, or, in honor of its author, Hume’s Law. The source of this form … Charles Pidgen on the So-Called “Naturalistic Fallacy” in Meta-Ethics
Jonathan MS Pearce on Christianity and Inter-Testamental Moral Relativism
Jonathan MS Pearce recently posted a very interesting argument. Pearce starts with the fact that there are important differences between Old Testament ethics and New Testament ethics. If Divine Command Theory were true, however, he argues that this would be an example of “inter-testamental moral relativism.” LINK
An Amazing Coincidence about God’s Commands
Isn’t it amazing that God’s commands as reported by holy books just happen to reflect the views of the culture in which they were written? It’s almost as if the authors of those books took their own opinions about morality and said they were God’s opinions.