An Up and Coming Atheist

This morning I watched a lecture on C-Span by Sam Harris, an up and coming atheist who has recently written The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. His thesis is that we can arrive at morality without the authoritarian dictates of religion. He spent quite a bit of time pointing out the inadequacy of the Muslim religion to establish a basis for morality. He used this extreme example to show that all religious tenets are, to some extent, based on unscientific and often unreasonable assumptions and, therefore, cannot be relied upon to establish morality. Yet, he recognizes that science has always been reluctant to make statements about morality concluding that this was a subject better suited to religion or philosophy.

He mentioned a conversation he once had with a woman after one of his lectures. He described her as one “who seemed, at first glance, to be very well-positioned to reason effectively about the implications of science for our understanding of morality.” He went on to say that she holds degrees in biology, genetics, and law from such schools as Dartmouth and Harvard. He said she was a recognized authority “on the intersection between criminal law, genetics, neuroscience and philosophy.” He also said she had subsequently been appointed by President Obama to the the President’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. In a discussion with this woman, who seemed at odds with some of his basic assumptions, he asked her if she could not agree that something as horrible as a “culture that ritually blinded every third child by literally plucking out his or her eyes at birth,” should be considered “a culture that was needlessly diminishing human well being?” She said it would depend on why they were doing it. He suggested she assume that it was being done because their religion mandated it. She said, "Then you could not automatically say that it was wrong."

By going through the credentials of most of the females on the President’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, I learned that the name of the lady to whom Harris referred is Nita A. Farahany. I don’t know what her philosophical biases are, but unlike Harris, whose naïve jaws dropped at the suggestion that something so horrible as ritual blinding could not be dismissed out of hand as an a priori example of the grosses evil, I tend to agree with Farahany, from an atheistic point of view. When belief in a transcendent moral code, upheld by the moral governor of the universe is subtracted from the equation, we are left with no real right or wrong with respect to anything. Self interest becomes god. Without the standard of right and wrong given to us in the ancient Scriptures and particularly illuminated by Jesus Christ, we are left to conclude that what Hitler did to the Jews might have been right or wrong. Who are we to say, and by what code?

With deference toward the "Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God," the writers of the Declaration of Independence held truths relative to the existence of God and his creation of mankind to be, as they put it, "self evident." Many today would disagree that such assumptions are self-evident. But if we reject the notion of a moral God of the universe, how can we condemn the actions that flow from motives of greed, lust, or racial prejudice, for example, wherever they may lead? Is it wrong for a man to think of his wife as an inferior being who has no rights except those he decides to give her or to believe he has a right to punish her as he deems necessary. Millions of people grow up in a culture where that is the norm. So is it wrong? Who says so? How can we know that the law of the jungle, “kill or be killed” should not be our highest moral precept?

Apart from God, and the revelation of His morality we have no basis for judging the actions of anyone no matter how heinous their actions appear to us. Who among us wants to live in such a world? Yet, only the notion of a transcendent, righteous God of the universe can deliver us from such a fate. No wonder Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:6-8 concerning the laws God had given them which reflected God's righteousness:

Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” ...And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were right to question his authority. Everything turns on the matter of his authority to do and say the things he did and said. Who was he? How did he have the right to make the kind of sweeping statements he made about right and wrong? Jesus did not sidestep the issue. He repeatedly affirmed that his authority was from the Father, the God of the universe, from which he had come:

He who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world. (John 8:26),

I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me (John 8:28).

It is intensely interesting that some atheists are now scrambling to establish some code of morality to replace that which their atheism has destroyed. Good luck asking Science for help with this problem.