Video on “The Moral Argument”

This is a good introductory video to “The Moral Argument of the Existence of God”. It’s made by a Christian, has many good points and delivers some nice blows to moral relativism. Enjoy!

Part One

Part Two

Biomimetics: Technology Imitates Nature

I’ve been watching Harun Yahya’s films for many years now and I warmly recommend them. In “Biomimetics: How Technology Imitates Nature” we see how we humans often have to imitate nature when we want the best obtainable technological designs. Harun Yahya shows us how scientists have used the fantastic technology in nature to create a lot of interesting things like – and I find this especially interesting for us as devotees – how the lotus flower has been used due to its amazing ability to stay clean. I’ll not reveal more. Watch the video to learn how and why!

Enjoy this evidence of Intelligent Design.  

What follows from the link between Darwin and Hitler?

Sitapati Prabhu wrote:

“Science Daily.com has an interesting article entitled: “How to spot a hidden religious agenda“, which contains the following:

The ID crowd, for instance, loves to draw a line from Darwin to the Holocaust, as they did in the “documentary” film Expelled: No intelligence allowed. Even if such an absurd link were justified, it would have zero relevance to the question of whether or not the theory of evolution is correct.

That’s correct.

My answer:

Dear Prabhu!

Richard Weikart, author of “From Darwin to Hitler“, argued that a link between Darwin and Hitler can be either historical or logical. He argues for a historical link and not so much, if at all, for a logical link. The historical link in indisputable. As I argue in my post “Prabhupada on Darwin and Moral Decline (Part 2)” there is also some what of a logical link – at least between some of Darwin’s ideas to some of Hitlers ideas. However, I would never say that Darwinism by logical necessity leads to Hitler even though it definitely leads to some horrible things. But looking at human psychology I think it obvious that if the wrong people get Darwin’s ideas in their hands (which they did) then Nazi Germany or something similar follows. Darwin’s ideas were insane on many points – and sick people acted on them and sometimes made their own little extra spin on them.

It would, of course, be a logical fallacy to claim that Darwin’s ideas are wrong because they lead to negative consequences, but in the light of Krishna Consciousness we know that the truth doesn’t contain evil doctrines. This might not be helpful for a non-Krishna Conscious audience. Therefore you can view my presentation of the moral consequences as going hand in hand with a scientific response to Darwinism. People, including some devotees, might argue that “Darwin is wrong, but so what? Why spend so much time on his ideas?” So I think it is important to give them a package where you can see that not only is Darwinism wrong, but also harmful – and thus must be addressed and defeated.

Prabhupada on Darwin and Moral Decline (Part 2)

What follows is the continuation of my debate with Rasasthali Devi Dasi at www.dandavats.com. The below is a new and revised version.

In my post “Prabhupada on Darwin and Moral Decline (Part 1)” I defended my first contention which was that Rasasthali Devi Dasi contradicts Prabhupada when she claims that Darwinism hasn’t been, to a large extent, the cause of the many social evils we see today.

In the following I’ll defend my second contention which is that Rasasthali Devi Dasi is wrong when she claims that Darwinism hasn’t been, to a large extent, the cause of the many social evils we observe today.  

There’s a lot to be said about this subject matter. My intention is to write a longer article presenting more detailed explanations and giving more evidence for the six points I will discuss here. So stay tuned at Vaisnava Apologetics! :-)

The Social Impact of Darwinism

I will argue that social evils follows logically and inescapably from Darwin’s ideas. Specifically I’ll mention six things about his theory of evolution which makes it an evil theory:

1. Leaving God out of the picture

Darwin’s ideas made it possible, like never before, to explain the world without the need for God or any sort of supernatural phenomenon. Darwin was himself heavily influenced by materialistic philosophy from his very childhood and from earlier and contemporary materialistic philosophers like Hume and Comte whom he liked. Even before he published his books he would lean towards the rejection of God. Evidence for this can be found in his earlier notebooks and manuscripts. At the end of his life Darwin would totally reject Christianity. His theory became a “scientific” justification for leaving God out of the picture – and Darwin knew this very well. 

The social impact of leaving God out of the picture is that from that it follows that there can be no absolute standard for right and wrong. We are left with no spiritual guidance. This is common sense which I show in my version of “The Moral Argument for the Existence of God”. Prabhupada agrees fully with this view which I document in my “Prabhupada and the Moral Argument for the Existence of God”. Making people think that we don’t have any need of God in order to explain the origin of and development of life leads naturally to disastrous moral consequences. It more then anything else confines people within the physical world by making them identify with the body.

2. Moral relativism

If we can explain everything without God it becomes irrational to believe in God. Darwin argued that all human traits including moral traits can be explained by his theory. This leaves us with moral relativism. The consequences of moral relativism can be seen in my article “The Moral Argument for the Existence of God”. The consequences are that all actions are morally equal. There can be no true normative moral statements. Thus it becomes impossible to condemn things like rape, murder, oppression, child abuse, slavery etc. And we also can’t praise things we normally consider morally good like helping people in need, caring for our children, spreading spiritual knowledge etc. Everything become equal. Darwin himself arrived at the conclusion that morality was simply relative. If we want to do good, he said, we can do nothing more than listen to what we feel is good. This moral relativism was condemned by Prabhupada (see “Prabhupada and the Moral Argument for the Existence of God“).

3. There is no progress in our evolution as a species without war, disease, famine and other sorts of pressures which eliminates the weak specimens and forces the strong to adapt and develop superior traits.

Darwin often praised war as a good thing and later thinkers and political leaders like Stalin, Lenin and Hitler used this to justify their wars. Some, like Lenin, even created artificial famine in their countries to eliminate the weak.

To say that there’s no progress without wars and that wars are therefore a good, and even a necessary thing, is in itself an evil doctrine. How accountable Darwin is for this is ultimately between him and Krishna. 

4. The use of eugenics.

Darwin favored, at least to some degree, the use of eugenics. Just like we can make better and stronger animals by not letting the weak specimens procreate and by letting the strong specimens procreate so we can make better and stronger men by hindering the weak in body and mind to procreate and by helping to strong in body and mind to do so. There are quotes were Darwin says that the poor should not be allowed to procreate and were he says only humans, among other animals, are so stupid as to take care of their weak specimens.

5. Racism

While some argue that Darwin was against slavery it’s still true that he was a racist. You’re not necessarily against racism because you are against slavery. Darwin’s books are filled with racism. He consistently wrote that the European white race was the most superior race and that blacks were almost like apes. This view follows logically from his evolution theory; some must be more evolved than others. The weak dies and the strong survives. Thus Darwin predicted that soon the “savage races” would die in the struggle for survival, being eliminated by the stronger races (the white caucasians).

6. Sexism

Darwin used his theory of evolution to explain why he thought that men were more intelligent than women. He argued that it must be because men were the ones who were out of the home struggling to get food. Thus they encountered more pressure and thus acquired superior traits, like a higher intelligence. In some places Darwin would say that women, like dogs, was good to keep men company. 

Conclusively

There is definitely a logical and historical link between Darwin’s ideas and evil. The six points mentioned above are in themselves evil and combined together gave a “scientific” justification for all sorts of social evils. Darwin was warned about the consequences, even by his own mentor and friends. But he didn’t do anything to prevent them. Nor did he protest when his cousin Francis Galton instituted a eugenics society. He also didn’t object to the sick way in which many contemporary thinkers took his ideas.

Besides the indisputable historical links between Darwin and all the socials evil performed in his name by later dictators, like Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Mao, Mussolini and others are there also logical links between them? I think in some areas there certainly are. But in other areas it might be their adding something to Darwin’s ideas or seeing some consequences of the ideas that Darwin didn’t see or spoke about. Sometimes Darwin was inconsistent. This was the case in regard to his morality. He had his personal moral opinions which is inconsistent with the view that morality is relative. On the one hand the claimed that morality was relative, but on the other hand he claimed that slavery was wrong. So some thinkers simply took the logical consequences of Darwin’s moral relativism and rejected his inconsistent moral opinions. Darwin’s contemporary admirer Ernst Haeckel, who was a very outspoken racist and eugenicist, did this and claimed that moral relativism follows logically Darwin’s theory. He was right. Without Darwin’s theory it’s hard to see how these thinkers and dictators could have argued for their ideas and gotten away with their actions.

Darwin’s theory has been used as the building block for many social evils. It has fueled, inspired and “scientifically” justified things like euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, racism, satanism, forced sterilization, sexism, liberalizing sex and criminal justice, experimentation with humans and animals, wars, artificial famine, elimination of the inferior, eugenics and many other evils.

Darwinism permeates everywhere and makes people identify with their bodies and think that God is unnecessary. Therefore it is the number one evil theory on the face of the planet and therefore Prabhupada wanted it defeated almost more than any other thing. We can let Krishna decide precisely how much Darwin will be held accountable for propagating his ideas. But it doesn’t look good. Let’s pray that he will become Krishna Conscious and be protected from the bad karma.

Prabhupada and “The Moral Argument”

When I  first wrote “The Moral Argument for the Existence of God” I experienced that some devotees were very critical of the argument. Some argued against its validity, others against its premises. Since many devotees are not so experiences in the use of logic and reasoning I realized how important it is to show them that and how Prabhupada used this argument. I made some research and now I’ve written a text on called “Prabhupada and “The Moral Argument for the Existence of God”. It’s too long to post here, so I’ll provide a link to it and a short excerpt:

Excerpt:

“Prabhupada would often use logic and sense perception when arguing for God’s existence. He used many of the traditional arguments for the existence of God such as the Design Argument (Teleological Argument), the First Mover Argument (Cosmological Argument) and the Moral Argument (Axiological Argument). The article at hand deals only with how Prabhupada used the “Moral Argument”.”

“I will attempt to go one step at the time first showing 1) how he defined “absolute moral laws”, then 2) how he argues in favor of the truth of premise 1, then 3) how he argues in favor of premise 2 and at last 4) how he infers the conclusion that God exist from the premises according to the standard rules of logic.”

Link

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=d83tkq3_18gxzdzkc8

Please note that the text is part of a larger text and not completely finished. But it is definitely readable.

Theistic Argument from Absolute Values

Like The Moral Argument this is also an axiological argument since axio literally means “value”.

Theistic Argument from Absolute Values

- Authored by Ajita Krishna Dasa

1. If God does not exist, absolute values do not exist
2. Absolute values do exist
3. Therefore God exist

Before defending the first premise of my argument I would like to mention that this is an argument and not a proof. It’s not an absolute proof. For 99% of all the propositions we accept as true we don’t have 100% proof. Science, for example, never talk about proofs but about justifying. The scientific method relies on induction which per definition can’t give us certain knowledge. To demand an absolute proof for God would be inconsistent since we mostly accept things as true even though we haven’t seen absolute proofs for them. So I’m not giving a 100% proof for the existence of God, but I’m showing that the premises in my argument are far better than their negations, and that it’s conclusion therefore also is far better than it’s negation. I will go so far as to say that if after reading this argument one does not accept the existence of God one is unintelligent. 

Defense of premise one:

1. If God does not exist, absolute values do not exist.

According to our experience values are always produced by a mind. We don’t see values flying around in the air or lying on the streets. Whenever we see values they are produced by a mind. Therefore, based on an inductive argument rooted on our experience with values as always being produced by a mind, we have to conclude that if absolute values exist they are also produced by a mind. That’s where the evidence points. But fallible and limited human minds can’t establish absolute values. Absolute values are values that are objective and true even if some or all people disagree with them, don’t know about their existence or can act contrary to them. For a value to be absolute it also has to be true in all possible worlds. If there were other worlds the value of human life would also be a value in them in order to be an absolute value. It should be obvious that a fallible and limited human mind can’t establish such absolute values. Just like human minds, for example, can’t establish mathematical truths, but only discover them. We can’t even change the laws of nature. Even if we for the sake of argument accepted that they could it would lead to contradictions. Human A could make it an absolute truth that human life is absolutely valuable while person B could make it an absolute truth that the absence of human life is absolutely valuable. This would make human life both absolutely valuable or not absolutely valuable at the same time which is a contradiction. But what could establish absolute values? The best answer seems to be that such values requires an absolute mind with absolute power so that no other person or entity can change or overrule the created values). Such an absolute mind with absolute power must be labeled God. 

First objection to premise one

Atheist: “well if value A is true for a person, and is caused by gene A, and everyone has gene A, then everyone has value A. by definition value A is true to everyone and by your definition it is a absolute value. If it is true that a square has four sides, and all squares have the same properties as that square, then it is absolutely true to say that all squares have four sides.”

AKD: “What does it mean that value A is “true for a person”? And what you have to prove is that value A is in fact true, and it doesn’t become true even if a certain kind of gene make all people think value A is true. And if it isn’t true, it isn’t an absolute value.”

Atheist: “By Value a being true i mean that that person feels that value and knows it. Now by logic, if that person’s value is true for them, and it is caused by Gene A, and everyone has gene A, That value is universal and it is true. Because for something to be true it has to be universal.”

AKD: “You fail to argue how it can become “true”. It’s also not universal since it’s not eternally existing, it’s contingent on the existence of humans and their specific gene and it’s not existing in all possible worlds. So basically you have no argument here.” 

Atheist: “If its universal for every single human alive, and was ever alive how is it not true? so by your logic are you saying unthinking bacteria or even viruses have these values? What is your definition of being true?”

AKD: “Like I’ve said a couple of times now: Just because all humans have a gene that makes them feel that something has value it doesn’t follow that it’s true that it has value. If all humans had a gene that make them feel the Earth was flat that wouldn’t make the Earth flat. Our feelings are not the standard against which reality is measured. My definition of being true is that proposition A is true if it coincides with the reality. The proposition “the Earth is not flat” is true if, and only if, the Earth is actually not flat. In the same way the proposition “life has value” is true if, and only if, life actually has value. A gene might make me feel life has value, but it doesn’t follow from that that life actually has value. Therefore your gene idea brings you nowhere.” 

Atheist: “a gene might tell you a life has value. ok. now if a person has that gene that tells them life is valuable, and every other person that has ever lived has had that same gene, even in a recessive form( where they don’t feel that value or they don’t know it) It means that human life is valuable to every single person that has every lived or will ever live. It means it is true”

AKD: “I’ve already refuted that claim. Just because a gene makes you feel and think that A has value it doesn’t follow that A actually has value. You’re committing a form of the naturalistic fallacy because you infer a value from what “is”. This is the last time I’ll respond to this sort of fallacious argumentation.”

Second objection to premise one

Atheist: “It isn’t IMPOSSIBLE for an atheist to accept absolute values.”

AKD: “But they can’t explain where they come from. And since theism offers a very plausible explanation for them it follows that atheists prefer to reject them – otherwise they’ll cling to the worst explanation (no explanation at all). When you have explanation A for which there’s evidence and explanation B for which there’s no evidence, then it’s irrational to choose explanation B.”

Defense of my second premise

2. Absolute values exist

To say that all values are relative is to say that they are all, objectively speaking, equal. It is to say that it’s an objective truth that no value judgement is better or worse than any other value judgement, and therefore also to say that it’s false to say that some value judgements are better or worse than others. But as soon as the relativist claims that all values are relative then he chooses to put more value in articulating that claim than not to articulate it, or to articulate something else. But this doesn’t make sense, because according to his own position the claim “values are relative” has no more value than it’s negation or some other claim. In other words, we can’t deny the existence of absolute values, and thereby argue in favor of value relativism, without at the same time denying the logical outcome of value relativism, which is that all values have the same value. So it’s a self-contradiction to deny the existence of absolute values, and so we have to reject value relativism and accept value absolutism, because the latter doesn’t make us contradict ourselves.

First objection to premise two

Atheist: “absolute values do not exist. A thief stealing to survive doenst think its wrong. A rich man thinks its wrong just becuase he doens’t want someone stealing his property. Murder in self defense is not wrong, yet the ;aw sates that one can’t kill. Thats just because they don’t wont that happeneing to them. It has nothing to do with absolute morals. its actually very egotistical preservation. So by your argument god does not exist”

AKD: “You’ve just commited a fallacy called “inflation of conflict”. You can’t conclude that no absolute values exist because some people disagree about what’s valuable or what is morally correct. Even if some values are relative and subjective it surely doesn’t prove that there’s no absolute and objective values. In fact, most people and societies agree very much about what is valuable–courage, honor, respect for authority, the value of life, truthfulness, seeking knowledge etc. They might sometimes disagree on how to practice or live these values, but they more often than not agree they are values. So your refutation fails and my argument stands.”

Conclusion

Since my argument is logically valid and since I’ve argued successfully in favor of both it’s premises then the conclusion of the argument has to be accepted. Thus theism is shown to be more rational than atheism.

The Moral Argument (Axiological Argument)

The Moral Argument for the Existence of God (Axiological Argument)

- Authored by Ajita Krishna Dasa

An interesting and persuasive argument for the existence of God is The Moral Argument (also called The Axiological Argument. Axio means “value”). The argument can be presented as follows.

1. If God does not exist, absolute moral values do not exist.

2. Absolute moral values do exist.


3. Therefore God exist.

Defending premise one

Absolute moral values are values that exist objectively and are true for all human beings even if only some or none of us agrees to them, knows about their existence and even if it’s possible for us to act contrary to them. Some people that Gods existence is not necessary condition for the existence of absolute moral values. They will hold that absolute moral values can exist independently of any personal being. It’s true that this is a logical possibility, but it runs contrary to our experience which constantly affirms that all moral values are contingent upon personal beings. Based on this experience we have the following inductive argument:

1. All observed values are contingent upon personal beings.

2. A is a value.

3. Therefore A is contingent upon a personal being. 

Moving on from here, it’s obvious that fallible and limited human minds can’t establish absolute moral values. Since moral values are always contingent upon personal beings it seems likely that absolute values, if they exist, must be made by an absolute personal being with absolute power so that no other person can change or overrule this personal beings established moral values. If someone could they would not be absolute. Most atheists agree with this premise and therefore they have to reject the second premise in order to avoid the conclusion.

Defending premise two

Either absolute moral values exist or they do not exist. If they exist then moral absolutism is true and if they don’t then moral relativism is true. So either moral absolutism is true or moral relativism is true. They can not both be true. So if it’s possible to show that moral relativism is not true or unacceptable then we are left with moral absolutism. This is what I will do here. My argument will looks like this:

1. Either moral absolutism is true or moral relativism is true.

2. Moral relativism is not true.

3. Therefore moral absolutism is true. 

Now, I will present four points–which might overlap each other–as to why it doesn’t make sense to accept moral relativism. And since moral absolutism is the only alternative to moral relativism it has to be accepted instead.

1. If moral relativism is true then it’s true that all actions are morally equal. So to be a moral relativist while, at the same time, hold a certain normative moral position (like, for example, claiming it’s morally unacceptable to be a moral absolutist) is first of all self-contradictory, because if all actions are equal then it can’t be better or worse to be a moral relativist than a moral absolutist.

2. But the fact is that no one is really able to live as if all actions are really morally equal. No one can stop making moral judgments and this, as shown above, only makes sense if absolute moral values exist. This means that it’s impossible to live as a consistent moral relativist.

3. All moral relativists hold moral positions and that makes them contradict reality as reality would look like if moral relativism were correct. The moral relativists moral philosophy will dictate “you ought to do A” and “you ought to refrain from doing B” while the objective reality would be that “there’s nothing you ought to do”. So if moral relativism is true and we want to live a philosophically consistent life we have to hold no normative moral position at all.

4. To really try to live according to moral relativism (to live as if every action is equal to every other action) will make us morally crippled monsters. At least in the eyes of the average person. We will, for example, not try to further or praise good deeds and stop or condemn bad deeds.

To make the case for moral absolutism even stronger I will present a 5th point which provides positive evidence for the existence of absolute moral values.

5. No one is born thinking that all moral actions are equal. We all have a moral intuition which tells us that something is really right and something is really wrong. We might ask ourselves if we have any reason to doubt this moral intuition? The Christian philosopher and theologian Dr. William Lane Craig answers this question in the following way:

“…could anything be more obvious than that objective moral values do exist? There is no more reason to deny the objective reality of moral values than the objective reality of the physical world.” [...] “The fact is that we do apprehend objective values, and we all know it. Actions like rape, torture, child abuse, and brutality are not just socially unacceptable behavior–they are moral abominations.” [...] “By the same token, love, generosity, equality, and self-sacrifice are really good. People who fail to see this are just morally handicapped, and there is no reason to allow their impaired vision to call into question what we see clearly.” [1]  

Because we all, at least deep within ourselves, know that something is really right and that something is really wrong then very few moral relativists are really moral relativists if they are pressed with questions like “do you really think it’s true that pedophilia is not morally wrong?” or “do you really think it’s true that it’s not wrong to torture babies for fun?” To press them with questions like this will force them to choose between accepting an absolute and objective morality or be an irrational, morally crippled monster. No matter what they choose we, obviously, have won the debate. 

Conclusion

The above points makes it clear that the prize one has to pay for adopting moral relativism is very high. One can only cling to moral relativism if one is willing to 1) think inconsistently 2) live inconsistently 3) contradict reality and 4) be a morally crippled monster. None of the above problems follows necessarily from moral absolutism, and since moral absolutism is the only possible alternative to moral relativism, we have to accept moral absolutism. And since God is the only reasonable foundation for absolute moral values we also have to accept the existence of God.

Notes:

[1] “The Indispensability of Theological Meta-ethical Foundations for Morality” by Dr. William Lane Craig (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/meta-eth.html)