Okay, since Subman seems to be intent on flaunting opinion as fact and belief as truth, and laughing at anyone who disagrees; and this has devolved into yet another "I'm right and you're stupid" religious argument, I'm going to try to stick with the article itself, and the circular reasoning in flawed logic therein.
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If you walk around Washington, D.C., on a regular basis, youre likely to see some rather peculiar posters. But you wont see any more peculiar than the ads put out by the American Humanist Association. Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake, say the signs, in Christmas-colored red and green.
Sounds great, doesnt it? Just be good for goodness sake. You dont need some Big Man in the Sky telling you what to do. You can be a wonderful person simply by doing the right thing.
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Not a bad start, since the author is intent on proving his thesis that all morals stem from God, and without a guiding hand we have no free will or moral capability.
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Theres only one problem: without God, there can be no moral choice. Without God, there is no capacity for free will.
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A good statement, but made from belief, and as yet without substantiation. But a thesis has to begin somewhere.
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Thats because a Godless world is a soulless world.
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Says the believer. But he already believes. This is a statement of 'fact', but there are as yet no facts to support it. It's merely belief, stated as absolute. But it's just the beginning, so let's move on.
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Virtually all faiths hold that God endows human beings with the unique ability to choose their actions -- the ability to transcend biology and environment in order to do good. Transcending biology and our environment requires a higher power -- a spark of the supernatural. As philosopher Rene Descartes, put it, Although I possess a body with which I am very intimately conjoined [my soul] is entirely and absolutely distinct from my body and can exist without it.
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And now we have a problem. So pretty much all faiths believe in free will, and we can't concieve of anything greater than ourselves unless that something actually exists? We don't know that. We can imagine all kinds of things, and free will versus predestination has been an ongoing argument among scholars of all faiths since there have been faiths. And quoting Decartes is nice, but doesn't prove anything, since later philosophers and scholars have alternately agreed with him and claimed that his reasoning was flawed on that point (with which I agree, by the way). It becomes a case of "my philosopher can beat up your philosopher", which can be fun but in both cases is still nothing more than opinion.
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Gilbert Pyle, the atheistic philosopher, derogatorily labeled the idea of soul/body dualism, the ghost in the machine. Nonetheless, our entire legal and moral system is based on the ghost in the machine -- the presupposition that we can choose to do otherwise. We can only condemn or praise individuals if they are responsible for their actions. We dont jail squirrels for garden theft or dogs for assaulting cats -- they arent responsible for their actions. But we routinely lock up kleptomaniacs and violent felons.
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How exactly is our legal system based on "The Ghost in the Machine"? Again, a statement out of nowhere, with no backing. I read the Ten Commandments, and I read Mosaic Law in the Bible, and I find almost nothing in common with English Common Law, from which American law derives. We hold people responsible for their actions, and we create law to protect ourselves from each other. How exactly does any of that have to do with the existence - or not - of a separate soul.
A brief aside here: It could be (and has been) argued that the concept of a soul derives from our awareness of our mortality, and desire not to have it end when we die. If we go on, exactly what part of it is it that does exist after our bodies stop? Hence you must have a soul, or else it doesn't work, and the need for a soul does not necessarily equate with the existence of one.
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Its not only our criminal justice system that presupposes a Creator. Its our entire notion of freedom and equality. We hold these truths to be self-evident, wrote Thomas Jefferson, supposed atheist, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Human equality must spring from a Creator, because the presence of a soul is all that makes man human and equal. Biology suggests inherent inequality -- who would call Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stephen Hawking equal in any way? Biology suggests the sort of Hegelian social Darwinism embraced by totalitarian dictators, not the principles of equality articulated by the Founding Fathers.
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Again he states flatly that our criminal justice system presupposes a creator, with no other evidence that that he believes it to be so. He then calls Jefferson a "supposed atheist". Actually Jefferson's writings indicate that he certainly believed in a God, and that he had a soul that would live on after he was gone. What the author
doesn't tell you, though, is that Jefferson absolutely did
not believe that Jesus Christ was that God 'come in the flesh'. He more than once called Jesus "the greatest human teacher" and even wrote his own 'Bible', in which he kept the teachings but dismissed any miraculous happenings as made up by his followers. It was the Christian leaders of his own time who labelled Jefferson an 'atheist'.
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Without a soul, freedom too is impossible -- we are all slaves to our biology. According to atheists, human beings are intensely complex machines. Our actions are determined by our genetics and our environment. According to atheists, if we could somehow determine all the constituent material parts of the universe, we would be able to predict all human action, down to the exact moment at which Vice President-elect Joe Biden will pick his nose. Freedom is generically defined as the power to determine action without restraint (Random House). But if action without restraint is impossible, how can we fight for freedom?
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And yet again, a statement without backing. How exactly is freedom impossible without a soul? No explanation, and no backing. In the end, opinion is given as the proof of argument, and opinion is no proof at all.
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If there is no God, there is no freedom to choose. If there is no freedom to choose, there is no good or evil. There is merely action and inaction. There is no way to be good for goodness sake -- that would require an act of voluntary will far beyond human capacity.
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More of the same. How does he come to this conclusion? "I believe it, therefore it is so!" Who says it would require an 'act of voluntary will far beyond human capacity."? He does, and he expects everyone to take his word for it. It may be true, or it may not, and he doesn't know for sure any more than I do. He only makes the claim, with not real substantiation.
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Atheists simply gloss over this point. The American Humanist Association states on its website, whybelieveinagod.org, We can have ethics and values based on our built-in drives toward a moral life. Without a soul, this is wishful thinking of the highest order. Since when does biology dictate a moral drive? If it did, wouldnt man always get more rather than less moral -- wouldnt history be a long upward climb? What about the murderers, rapists, child molesters and genocidal dictators? Are they all ignoring that built-in drive toward a moral life?
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And now he calls morality without the soul "wishfull thinking". And with what evidence. Again it's a case of "I'm right and you're stupid", with no backing other than his own statement that it's so.
All speculation, advertised as 'fact'.
