EMP Chapter 4
pp. 52-67
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In the popular mind, there is a connection. Note the
Moore example in the text.
People commonly believe that morality can only be
understood in the context of religion. Clergy are
deemed to have authority on this basis. Most
philosophers find this view to be baseless.
Some see the universe as a cold, meaningless place,
devoid of value and purpose, as described in Bertrand
Russell’s “A Free Man’s Worship” (50).
Others believe that behind the scene is a loving and an
all-powerful God whose plans and purposes are
realized. The conception of God as a lawgiver who
created free agents who can choose to accept or reject
his commandments is proposed.
DCT (Divine Command Theory) and Natural Law
Ethics—want to connect religion and morality
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According to DCT morally right means commanded by
God; morally wrong means forbidden by God.
Solves two ethical issues: ethics’ objectivity is not just
feeling or custom but a matter of God’s commands and
behind the question of why be moral there is ultimate
accountability.
However, difficulties in the interpretation and application
of DCT abound, even for believers.
Can “right” be defined as what God commands? (see
below)
Does God give one command or many?
Does God command everyone or just specific individuals
(who are chosen how?).
Does God command types of acts (i.e. the Decalogue) or
specific acts (commanding the slaying of Isaac in Genesis
22)?
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Rachels suggests that we consider a dilemma
from Socrates' question in Euthyphro. If divine
command theory is true then either:
P:
Right conduct is right because God commands it.
God commands or requires us to be truthful. God
makes moral truths true.
OR
Q:
God commands or wills what is right (morally
good) because it is right (morally good). God
recognizes truth.
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If DCT is true then the acceptance of either P (God
commands) or Q (God recognizes) follows—since these
choices exhaust the possibilities. However, for theists,
accepting the truth of either view has negative
ramifications. Therein lies the dilemma.
Form of the Dilemma: Given P v Q, PR, QS
R v
S
Accepting “P” makes morality mysterious, arbitrary and
implies that if God doesn’t exist, then all is permitted.
PR
Accepting “Q” makes moral standards independent of
God’s will and since God merely recognizes right and
wrong, a theological conception is unnecessary. Hence
the theory is impious and untenable. QS
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If what is right (morally good) is right (morally
good) because God commands or wills it, then
there is no reason to either care about God’s moral
goodness or to worship him (R).
If morally good acts are good because they are
willed by God, an omnipotent God could will child
abuse (53), rape, murder, lying, and genocide. But
a God who could command abhorrent acts, would
not be worthy of worship since if God were to
command rape, murder, and genocide, then those
acts would necessarily be morally praiseworthy.
(See Bible) Moreover, if God’s will is constrained,
then he is not omnipotent.
However, in a theological view there are reasons to
care about God’s goodness ,to worship him, and to
see him as omnipotent.
Therefore: It is not the case that what is right
(morally good) is right (morally good) because God
commands or wills it. DCT is false.
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God commands what is right (morally good)
because it is right (morally good).
Standards of rightness or moral goodness
are independent of God. If moral laws hold
independently of God they would thus be
binding on Him. Thus, God is limited, not
omnipotent. Moreover, morally good acts
would be independent of God’s will. Hence,
it is possible for acts to be morally good
without their being willed by God. DCT
must be false.
Consequently, DCT is rejected by most
theists as untenable and impious.
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There are theological reasons why the theist
might be attracted to the divine command
theory and want to defend it. God is claimed to
be the creator of all things, and, therefore, the
creator of our moral obligations. God is
claimed to be sovereign, to have the authority
to tell us how to live our lives.
However, DCT’s dilemma shows that we must
either regard God’s command’s as mysterious,
arbitrary, and give up the doctrine of the
goodness of God, OR admit that there is a
standard of right and wrong that is
independent of his will, and give up the
theological conception of ethics. (See page 54)
Theology and ethics must be connected in a
different way says Aquinas.
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Natural law theorists see morality & purpose in
nature—the world is an orderly rational system
where each thing has its own proper place and is
serving a particular purpose. Christian scholars
borrowed extensively from Aristotle. The laws of
nature tell not just how things are but how they
ought to be as well. (55) Animals obey natural laws
out of instinct, but man has the capacity of choice
and is able to obey or disobey the laws of nature.
In ethics, believers in natural law hold (a) that there
is a natural order to the human world with values
and purposes built into its very nature (b) that this
natural order is good and laws of nature describe
how things ought to be, and (c) that people
therefore ought not to violate that order that is
shown by the dictates of reason.
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Representative quotations from people who see
purpose in nature:
“ The root of evil is not being in accord with nature”
◦ Augustine. Confessions of St. Augustine
“The likenesses to the divine nature are imprinted
upon every creature according to the creature’s
receptive capacities, greater or less in each
case…thus every creature carries, more or less, the
sign of its Maker.”
◦ Raymond Lully: "Doctor Illuminatus", theologian, b. at Palma
in Majorca, between 1232 and 1236; d. stoned to death by
Saracens (i.e. Muslims) at Tunis, 29 June, 1315.
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Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.
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The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.
◦ Aristotle : “The philosopher”
◦ Zeno.
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Question: Can we determine what is right and wrong by
understanding nature properly?
The difficulty concerns how we are to select those
aspects of natural behavior which can legitimately serve
as guides to moral behavior.
Are we to model ourselves upon the peaceful habits of
sheep or upon the internecine [mutually destructive]
conflicts of ants? Is the egalitarianism of the beaver or
the hierarchical life of the bee the proper exemplar of
human society? Should we imitate the widespread
polygamy and numerous instances of homosexuality in
the animal kingdom, or are there some higher
regularities of which these are no more than misleading
instances? Again, if the purpose of sex is procreation,
then any activity not conducive to making babies is
unnatural. (homosexuality, masturbation, oral sex, etc.)
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Rachels suggests that natural law theory is generally
rejected for three reasons:
What’s natural is not necessarily good: people’s selfcenteredness, disease, and disasters.
TNL seems to confuse “is” and “ought.” Facts and values
are logically distinct. Sex produces babies, but it does
not follow that “sex ought or ought not to be engaged in
only for that purpose.” (57)
TNL conflicts with modern science and the conception of
natural laws working blindly without purpose. Moreover,
Religion provides no special access to dictates of reason
since man has the capacity to act morally based on his
rationality whether he is a believer or not. If moral
judgments are dictates of reason, then morality is
independent of religion.
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Evidence of these books (Bible-Christian,
Koran-Muslim, Bhagavad-Gita—Hindu, etc)
containing the word of God?
Holy books disagree about God’s character,
intentions, actions, and existence. People
believe what they are taught—despite weak
grounds for belief. People determine to
believe without reason.
Religion’s unverifiability, which is an
essential feature of religious belief, can
cause frustration because there are no
means to adjudicate disputes.
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For many, the teachings of the church and the Scriptures
are what counts. Can't find specific guidance but you
can generate it by making much ado about little. Can
find much contradictory guidance. Text example.
Scriptures and church tradition are ambiguous—people
look in a religious text for confirmation of what they
already believe.
The text example—The power of positive prayer: cash
and Christianity—trust in the Bible to make you rich. The
Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life—in
the popular tradition of much “greed is good” guidance.
The prayer of Jabez is found in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10: And
Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his
mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare
him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel,
saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and
enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me,
and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may
not grieve me! And God granted him that which he
requested. (KJV)
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Abortion—take passage out of context and twist it to
your purposes.
Compare Jeremiah 1: See text page 59. The meaning
in context relates to the assertion of Jeremiah’s authority
as a prophet and God’s intending him to be one even
before he was born.
vs. Exodus 21 on the sanctity of the fetus [in context of
the law of ancient Israelites.
22 ¶ If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that
her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he
shall be surely punished, according as the woman's
husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the
judges determine. [a fine for killing a fetus]
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for
life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot
for foot, 25 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe
for stripe. [Here the fetus seems to be regarded as
something less than a person].
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Church opposes activities that thwart natural
processes (61)
Fetus’s status is determined by the soul’s entering
the body—when this is has changed.
Church tradition, like Scripture, is reinterpreted by
every generation to support its favored moral views...
“Right and wrong are not to be understood in terms
of God's will; morality is a matter of reason and
conscience, not religious faith: and in any case,
religious considerations do not provide definitive
solutions to most of the moral problems that we face”
(62-63).
Morality (rational, revisable) and Religion (irrational,
un-revisable): two completely different subjects.
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Is divorce ever permissible?
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Divorce is never permissible.
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Only when the wife is unfaithful
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When the 'unbelieving' partner chooses to leave
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When the husband is displeased with his wife
◦ Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth
adultery. -- Mark 10:11
◦ Whosoever putteth away his wife and marrieth another, committeth
adultery. -- Luke 16:18
◦ Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,
causeth her to commit adultery. -- Matthew 5:32
◦ Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and
shall marry another, committeth adultery. -- Matthew 19:9
◦ But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is
not under bondage in such cases. -- 1 Corinthinians 7:15
◦ When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass
that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some
uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and
give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is
departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. -Deuteronomy 24:1-2
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Reject consideration of the statement ‘God exists is
true if and only if God exists.’
Non-realist approach focuses on religious
practices and how we live. Prayer to God over a
child’s illness understood as an expression of
anguish rather than an attempt to influence God’s
will or a belief in or expectation of the possibility
of prayer’s efficacy.
However, this undermines the very intelligibility of
religious practice. Why would such a perspective be
considered? Perhaps, to save the appearances?
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In recent times, the masters of suspicion raise
doubts about religion.
After considering the writings of Marx, Nietzsche,
Freud, it is hard to still have the traditional view of
religion along with an appreciation of these
masters. They all arouse suspicion about the
purposes and motivations of religious thinking and
religious practices.
This characterization of these thinkers is made by a
Catholic philosopher Paul Ricoeur, which is
discussed in the Self Under Siege by Rick Roderick.
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Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud.
 Marx sees religion’s enablers as an intrinsic
part of the ruling class who provide the
means to keep the masses enslaved—
religion both soothes and deludes the
exploited masses.
 Nietzsche casts doubt on the purity of the
motivation of religious people—religion has
it basis in resentment and is a throwback to
a slave morality.
 Freud suggests religion is a by-product of
unconscious desires and wishes—illusions
that are insusceptible of proof.
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For Marx, while religion appears to have a
concern for transcendence and personal
salvation, its true function is to distract
people from the inhumanity of working
conditions, provide support for the
capitalist elite, and make the misery of life
more endurable for the masses by serving
as the “opium of the people.”
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The basis of irreligious criticism is this: man
makes religion; religion does not make man.
Religion is indeed man’s self-consciousness
and self-awareness so long as he has not
found himself or has lost himself again. But
man is not an abstract being, squatting outside
the world. Man is the human world, the state,
the society… [Religion] is the fantastic
realization of the human being inasmuch as the
human being possess no reality. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment
of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people. From
Critique of Hegel.
Today opium (and a myriad of other drugs both
the legal and illegal) is also the opium of the
people.
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For Nietzsche, the purpose of religion is to
make the weakness and resentment of the
masses as expressed in “slave morality” more
respectable by promoting the virtues of pity,
industry, humility, and friendliness.
Master morality promotes wealth, healthfulness,
cheerfulness and the following of one’s natural
instincts as a human being.
Religion is the refuge of the weak.
See RTD—Chapter 9—(70-73).
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Criticisms by Nietzsche: “Christianity has taken the
part of all the weak, the low, the botched; it has made
an ideal out of antagonism to all the self-preservative
instincts of sound life; it has corrupted even the
faculties of those natures that are intellectually most
vigorous, by representing the highest intellectual values
as sinful, as misleading, as full of temptation. The most
lamentable example: the corruption of Pascal, who
believed that his intellect had been destroyed by
original sin, whereas it was actually destroyed by
Christianity!... When the centre of gravity of life is
placed, not in life itself, but in "the beyond"--in
nothingness--then one has taken away its centre of
gravity altogether. The vast lie of personal immortality
destroys all reason, all natural instinct--henceforth,
everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that fosters
life and that safeguards the future is a cause of
suspicion.” from The AntiChrist
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“ Whoever has theological blood in his veins is shifty
and dishonourable [sic] in all things. The pathetic
thing that grows out of this condition is called faith: in
other words, closing one's eyes upon one's self once
for all, to avoid suffering the sight of incurable
falsehood. People erect a concept of morality, of
virtue, of holiness upon this false view of all things;
they ground good conscience upon faulty vision; they
argue that no other sort of vision has value any more,
once they have made theirs sacrosanct with the
names of "God," "salvation" and "eternity." I unearth
this theological instinct in all directions: it is the most
widespread and the most subterranean form of
falsehood to be found on earth.”
From The Antichrist
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For Freud, religion is not a source of hope
or comfort in the face of life’s difficulties
but an illusion that merely expresses one’s
wish for a father-God.
We must ask where the inner force of those
[religious] doctrines lies and to what it is
that they owe their efficacy, independent as
it is of recognition by reason. I think we
have prepared the way sufficiently for an
answer to both these questions. It will be
found if we turn our attention to the
psychical origin of religious ideas.
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These, which are given out as teachings, are not
precipitates of experience or end results of thinking:
they are illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest
and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their
strength lies in the strength of those wishes…the
terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood
aroused the need for protection through love which was
provided by the father; and the recognition that this
helplessness lasts throughout life made it necessary to
cling to the existence of a father, but this time a more
powerful one. Thus the benevolent rule of a divine
Providence allays our fear of the dangers of life; the
establishment of a moral world-order ensures the
fulfillment of the demands of justice, …the prolongation
of earthly existence in a future life provides the local and
temporal framework in which these wish-fulfillments
shall take place. From The Future of an Illusion (page 38)
1961.
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For Freud, religion is an exercise in mass
delusion and serves mainly to keep people
in a state of psychological infantilism.
Religion as wish fulfillment offers up the
“figure of an enormously exalted father” to
assure us that that there is meaning and
purpose in life and all will be well.
Religion intimidates intelligence with its
demands for unconditional submission to
inscrutable laws and keeps us from
distinguishing between fact and wishful
thinking. Ramifications of these suspicions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPewtr
F9q4&feature=player_embedded
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Is this religious ideal the only ideal for people to
follow? Many philosophers think not.
From Jose Ortega y Gasset Revolt of the Masses:
“When one speaks of "select minorities" it is usual for
the evil-minded to twist the sense of this expression,
pretending to be unaware that the select man is not
the petulant person who thinks himself superior to the
rest, but the man who demands more of himself than
the rest, even though he may not fulfill in his person
those higher exigencies. For there is no doubt that the
most radical division that it is possible to make of
humanity is that which splits it into two classes of
creatures: those who make great demands on
themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those
who demand nothing special of themselves, but for
whom to live is to be every moment what they already
are, without imposing on themselves any effort
towards perfection; mere buoys that float on the
waves.”
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“Religion is the experience of the Holy.”
Rudolph Otto. The Idea of the Holy.
This experience is extraordinarily diverse.
 Is religion in any sense objective?
 Christian’s versus Muslim’s heaven?
 What about the Buddhist’s nirvana?
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How does religious experience relate to
religious movements?
What’s the status of numinous (divine or
supernatural) and mystical apprehensions?
Personal relationship with God?
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Religions & violence: Most philosophers insist all ethical
judgments are human judgments. Appeals to an
unverifiable God (an imaginary friend, no matter how
exalted) are irrelevant as a source of morality. Since
religions are based on a person’s relationship with
unverifiable supernatural forces, killing for religious
reasons is always immoral. Justifications based on nonexistent threats or resource scarcities such as salvation,
sacred space, divine revelation, and group privileging are
always immoral.
1 Samuel 15:3—Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly
destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill
both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox, and
sheep, camel, and donkey.
Isn’t this what we call genocide!
31
This world is simply ablaze with bad ideas...The
contest between our religions is zero-sum. Religious
violence is still with us because our religions are
intrinsically hostile to one another. Where they
appear otherwise, it is because secular knowledge
and secular interests are restraining the most lethal
improprieties of faith....It is time we acknowledged
that no real foundation exists within the canons of
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any of our other
faiths for religious tolerance and religious
diversity...our religious beliefs can no longer be
sheltered from the tides of genuine inquiry....to
presume knowledge where one has only pious hope
is a species of evil... Man is manifestly not the
measure of all things. The universe is shot through
with mystery…No myths need be embraced for us to
commune with the profundity of our circumstance.
No personal God need be worshipped for us to live
in awe of the beauty and immensity of creation.”
From The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future
of Reason by Sam Harris [p.225-227]
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While religious faith is the one species of human
ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility
of correction, it is still sheltered from criticism in
every corner of our culture… [Books that offer us the
most dilute wisdom regarding the present are still
dogmatically thrust upon us and are a continuous
source of human violence.] …We are the final judges
of what is good, just as we are the final judges of
what is logical. There need be no scheme of rewards
and punishments transcending this life to justify our
moral intuitions or to render them effective in
guiding our behavior in the world. The only angels
we need evoke are those of our better nature:
reason, honesty, and love. The only demons we must
fear are those that lurk inside every human mind:
ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith, which is surely
the devil’s masterpiece.
◦ From The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the
Future of Reason
33
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I
I saw a slowly-stepping train Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.
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II
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.
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III
The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,
At first seemed man-like, and anon to change
To an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,
At times endowed with wings of glorious range.
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IV
And this phantasmal variousness
Ever possessed it as they drew along:
Yet throughout all it symboled none the less
Potency vast and loving-kindness strong.
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V
Almost before I knew I bent
Towards the moving columns without a word;
They, growing in bulk and numbers as they went,
Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard:
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VI
"O man-projected Figure, of late
Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?
Whence came it we were tempted to create
One whom we can no longer keep alive?
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VII
"Framing him jealous, fierce, at first,
We gave him justice as the ages rolled,
Will to bless those by circumstance accurst,
And longsuffering, and mercies manifold.
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VIII
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"And, tricked by our own early dream
And need of solace, we grew self-deceived,
Our making soon our maker did we deem,
And what we had imagined we believed.
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IX
"Till, in Time's stayless stealthy swing,
Uncompromising rude reality
Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning,
Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.
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X
"So, toward our myth's oblivion,
Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope
Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon,
Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.
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XI
"How sweet it was in years far hied
To start the wheels of day with trustful prayer,
To lie down liegely at the eventide
And feel a blest assurance he was there!
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XII
"And who or what shall fill his place?
Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes
For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
Towards the goal of their enterprise?" . . .
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XIII
Some in the background then I saw,
Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,
Who chimed as one: "This figure is of straw,
This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!"
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37
XIV
I could not prop their faith: and yet
Many I had known: with all I sympathized;
And though struck speechless, I did not forget
That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.
XV
Still, how to bear such loss I deemed
The insistent question for each animate mind,
And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed
A pale yet positive gleam low down behind,
XVI
Whereof to lift the general night,
A certain few who stood aloof had said,
"See you upon the horizon that small light Swelling somewhat?" Each mourner shook his head.
XVII
And they composed a crowd of whom
Some were right good, and many nigh the best....
Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom
Mechanically I followed with the rest.
38
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I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the
objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after
our own—a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human
frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the
death of the body, although feeble souls harbor such
thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms” (NY Times,
April 9, 1955). More recently discovered, [from a 1954
letter] “the word God is for me nothing more than the
expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a
collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are
nevertheless pretty childish.” NY Times, May 17, 2008—
Albert Einstein
Thomas Nagel—The Last Word— “I want atheism to be true
and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most
intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious
believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and,
naturally, hope that I am right in my belief. It’s that I hope
there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t
want the universe to be like that (130).
39
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“The day will come when the mystical generation of
Jesus, by the Supreme being as his father, in the womb
of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the
generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams (1823).
“Belief, thus, in the supernatural, great as are the
services which it is rendered in the early stages of
human development, cannot be considered to be any
longer required, either for enabling us to know what is
right and wrong in social morality, or for supplying us
with motives to do right and abstain from wrong.”
John Stuart Mill in Utility of Religion.
40
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“Brief and powerless is man’s life; on him and all his
race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to
good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent
matter rolls on its relentless way; for man condemned
today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass
through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish,
ere yet the blow fall, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his
little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of
Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have
built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve
a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his
outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces
that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his
condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding
Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned
despite the trampling march of unconscious power.”
From “A Free Man’s Worship” in Bertrand Russell’s Why I
Am Not a Christian.
41



“If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that
they are usually wrong.”
“A knowledge of the true age of the Earth and of the
fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced
intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of
the bible in the way that fundamentalist do. And if
some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should
any of the rest of it be accepted automatically.”—
Francis Crick in his autobiography What Mad Pursuit.
“Although the time of death is approaching me, I am
not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would
be considerably worse) going to the popularized
version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness
and, for removing me from all possible fears of
death, I am thankful to atheism.”—Isaac Asimov in
“On Religiosity” Free Inquiry.
42

“I say nothing of the moral difficulties and perversions
involved in revelation itself; though even in the Christianity
of the Gospels, at least in its ordinary interpretation, there
are some of so flagrant a character as almost to outweigh
all the beauty and benignity and moral greatness which so
eminently distinguish the sayings and character of Christ.
The recognition, for example, of the object of highest
worship, in a being who could make a Hell; and who could
create countless generations of human beings with the
certain foreknowledge that he was creating them for this
fate. Is there any moral enormity which might not be
justified by imitation of such a Deity? And is it possible to
adore such a one without a frightful distortion of the
standard of right and wrong? Any other of the outrages to
the most ordinary justice and humanity involved in the
common Christian conception of the moral character of
God, sinks into insignificance beside this dreadful
idealization of wickedness.”
43

The view that truth in religion is ultimately
based on faith rather than on reasoning or
evidence. However, faith in what? (a
concept of God is still needed) Christianity
cannot be believed without a belief in
miracles—religion as contrary to reason,
custom, and experience. (Hume) A “leap
into faith” in opposition to reason—a selfcontradiction. “No knowledge can have for
its object the absurdity that the eternal is
the historical.” Kierkegaard—Philosophical
Fragments (p. 50) (belief in the Incarnation
of Christ—God taking human form as
Jesus)
44


A retreat to commitment—a willingness to regard what is
true as irrelevant. Bartley sees a need for a meta-context
or an ecology for rationality: How can our intellectual life
and institutions be arranged so as to expose our beliefs,
conjectures, policies, positions, source of ideas,
traditions, and the like—whether or not they are
justifiable—to maximum criticism, in order to counteract
and eliminate as much intellectual error as possible?
(182)
An Econiche for Rationality—the availability of the
Gnostic Gospels discovered at Nag Hammadi —The kind
of controversy mentioned earlier —the one in which the
Gnostics were defeated by the forces of orthodoxy—is
one of thousands of possible illustrations of a simple
truth: that it is much harder to institutionalize and create
a viable econiche for a program of unrelenting growth,
development, and criticism than it is to create institutions
and viable conditions for a self-perpetuating system of
beliefs. (181)

The Retreat to Commitment, W.W. Bartley III]
[
45
Richard Robinson contends; “Jesus says nothing on
any social questions except divorce, and all
ascriptions of political doctrine to him are false.
He does not pronounce about war, capital
punishment, gambling, justice, the administration
of law, the distribution of goods, socialism,
equality of income, equality of sex, equality of
color, equality of opportunity, tyranny, freedom,
slavery, self-determination or contraception.
There is nothing Christian about being for any of
these things nor about being against them if what
we mean by ‘Christian’ is what Jesus taught
according to the synoptic gospels” [Matthew,
Mark, and Luke]
An Atheist’s Values (1964) p. 149.
46
Christian ethics is intolerant and breeds intolerance. “Error has
no rights” doctrine (only abandoned between 1962-65 to
encourage religious pluralism) and anti-Semitism have been
major diseases of Christendom.
Christian ethics is immoral because it works on a system of
rewards (heaven) for good behavior and threats (hell) for bad
and not on doing what is right simply because it is right and
for no other reason.
Instead of leading to self-fulfillment Christian ethics is
repressive. Most modern psychological analyses of human
growth and development advocate as an ethical norm an
altruistic, autonomous character.
Christian ethics keeps people at an immature level, because it
leads to stock moral reactions regardless of circumstances.
See “Christian Ethics” by Robert Preston in A Companion to Ethics
(91-105).
47
After a discussion of an evening strained by his refusal to
participate in a religious ritual, Simon Blackburn observes:
“But, I argued to myself, why should I ‘respect’ belief systems
that I do not share? I would not be expected to respect the
beliefs of flat-Earthers or those of the people who believed
that the Hale-Bopp comet was a recycling facility for dead
Californians and killed themselves in order to join it. Had
my host stood up and asked me to toast the Hale-Bopp
hopefuls, or to break bread or some such in token of
fellowship with them, I would have been just as
embarrassed and indeed angry. I lament and regret the
holding of such beliefs, and I deplore the features of
humanity that make them so common. I wish people were
different.”
From Philosophers Without Gods, ed., by Louise Anthony
(2007), pp.179-180.
48
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

Ethical Egoism (EMP—CHAPTER 5 pp. 64-81)
Distinguish psychological egoism from ethical
egoism.
Assess arguments for and against ethical
egoism.
What is the Tragedy of the Commons?
How does it relate to egoism?
49