I
didn't choose this video because healthyaddict is the most articulate
defender of atheism. Frankly, I've heard other, more articulate
atheists make these same points. I picked this video because
healthyaddict is very brief and I believe she is more representative
of the casual way people usually make this argument. By the way, I
spend about as much time looking at material critical of Christians
as I do examining material defending Christians. When I talk about
the unbelievers' arguments, I want to fairly represent their views
and not build a straw man of their position. In this case, you can
hear healthyaddict's position in her own words. I can't be accused
of misrepresenting her.
Are
we all agreed? Then let's move on.
She
opens her video with the comment that “morals are silly” but she
never really addresses what she means by that. It's very strange.
From there, she changes direction and begins explaining her theory on
the origin of morals. It's to this point that I'm going to respond.
Healthyaddict
says that morals come from natural selection. That's not a big
surprise because that's all that atheists or evolutionists ever have
as an explanation. She's a little vague, though, in that she doesn't
explain how this mechanism works. Is she saying that morality is a
conscious act where we choose behavior that offers the greatest
survival advantage or is morality an evolved trait where we
instinctively act in ways that offer the greatest chance for
survival? Either way, I will show you why she's wrong.
For
her first example, she says that if we go around killing people “then
the species would die off.” I guess she's saying that if we
killed people carte blanche, then eventually we'd kill
everyone. That's a little overreaching, don't you think? Again, I
don't want to put words into anyone's mouth but I'm going to try to
help her out. What she might be trying to say is that if we go
around killing people, we are more likely to be killed in revenge.
Therefore, if we act peaceably toward our neighbors, we're more
likely to be left alone by them and, so, are more likely to live
longer, have more kids, and pass along the trait of being peaceable.
This
sounds plausible at first but it fails under scrutiny. First, it's
well known that animals often fight and kill each other – even
members of the same species. Sometimes, they fight for reproductive
rights where the victorious male is allowed to mate and the defeated
male is dead. This actually strengthens the species as a whole by
removing the weaker males from the gene pool. If survival of the
fittest is the goal, why would it necessarily be morally wrong for
humans to kill each other if it were for something like the love of a
woman?
Furthermore,
under the “don't kill and you won't be killed” theory, would
imperialism be objectively immoral? In the US, under our Manifest
Destiny mission, we militantly displaced whole nations of American
Indians, killing many of them and forcing many more onto
reservations. Since this allowed the invading, white men to prosper,
it must be moral by healthyaddict's standard.
Healthyaddict
also attempts to tackle the dilemma of altruism. Why do humans do
things that are a cost to them and a benefit to others? It doesn't
make any sense according to evolution where everything is measured
only by its survival benefit. Healthyaddict suggests altruism is a
sort of reverse to the “don't kill and you won't be killed”
principle; altruism is a “do this and they'll do it back to you”
strategy. She gives the example of chimps picking bugs off other
chimps. They do it in the hope that later, some chimp will pick bugs
off them. I think healthyaddict needs to look up the definition of
altruism. If you are expecting something in return, then it isn't
altruism by definition. When people give money to starving children
in third world countries, they never expect the children to someday
repay them. Neither does the giver imagine that someday he might
find himself in a third world country and will need some, middle
class Westerner to give him food.
About
2 minutes into the video, healthyaddict undoes her entire point. She
says, “I do think some things are very core when it comes to
altruism, not killing each other generally, not raping each other. I
think that's kind of like a universal standard because of natural
selection.” You can see that the idea of morality by natural
selection is so vague as to be meaningless. It's far more subjective
than objective. No behavior could really be called immoral if an
argument could be made that it offers some survival value. Yet she
uses words like “core” and “universal standard” when it comes
to the immorality of things like murder or rape. Is there a “core,”
“universal standard” of morality or isn't there?
Immediately
after stating that some things are universally wrong, healthyaddict
points out that some attitudes of morality change over time. She
uses the example of homosexuality. Now, homosexuality does not
convey any survival benefit. Evolution hinges on reproduction and
attraction to the same sex guarantees there can be no offspring. If
perpetuation of the species is the objective, then homosexuality
should never be viewed as moral. So if attitudes toward the morality
of homosexuality have changed, something other than natural selection
must be the standard by which it is judged. I would ask
healthyaddict, what is that standard? What makes murder and rape
always wrong and homosexuality sometimes wrong?
Healthyaddict
highlights the futility of the atheist's position. Atheists strive
mightily to demonstrate that there is no transcendent, absolute
standard of morality. They know to acknowledge the existence of
immutable morality strongly suggests there must be a transcendent
Judge of right and wrong. So they equivocate and change the meaning
of morally “right” to mean “what is expedient.” Yet when it
comes to things like rape and murder, atheists immediately label them
as absolutely immoral.
