A Christian friend recommended the following debate, between David Silverman (atheist) and Dr. James White (Christian, presuppositional apologist). The topic of the debate was, "Is the New Testament evil?" This was my response:
I listened to this because you recommended it, but I tend to avoid debates that revolve around evaluating scripture. Having listened to a lot of debates, I now believe that the only religious debate worth having (or at least, the first debate that must be had) is whether the testable claims of that religion deserve to be taken seriously. Until the underlying worldview is shown to be reasonable, arguing the details of that worldview is putting the cart before the horse.
It’s like arguing whether Bigfoot is left-handed. Until we have a good reason to think Bigfoot exists, who cares which hand he writes with?
That’s why, if I had been in David Silverman’s shoes, I wouldn’t even have agreed to a debate about whether the New Testament is “evil.” Before it even started, I knew how that debate would go: The atheist would say, “Here’s some bad stuff in the Bible,” and the Christian would say, “You have no objective basis for morality, so how can you say what’s good or bad?” Of course, that’s exactly what happened. On those terms, there’s no way to settle the question. There’s no effective way to conduct the conversation, much less to win the debate.
I wonder why the Christians even wanted to have this debate. It makes me imagine a bunch of Star Wars fans who invite a layman to debate whether Darth Vader is evil. The layman wants to do his research, so he watches the movies, and he shows up with the most coherent argument that he can muster. He says, “Well, Darth Vader uses the Force to choke people who don’t deserve it, so Darth Vader is clearly evil.” But, instead of engaging with that point, the Star Wars fans reply, “How can you say that choking people is evil? You’re not a Star Wars fan. To you, this is a fictional story. If these are just fictional characters, how can choking them be evil?”
At that point, the layman would rightfully reply, “Okay, fine, but if that’s your attitude, why did you invite me to this debate? I thought you wanted to talk about Star Wars, but it seems like you only want to talk about how my opinion doesn’t count because I’m not a Star Wars fan.”
I told you once that presuppositionalism can’t actually win arguments; it just prevents itself from losing. It does that by trying to invalidate the whole conversation, claiming that its opponents have no basis for anything they say (or that they “borrow” their basis from the Christian worldview). Thus, the opponent can’t make any progress toward a coherent argument, because the presuppositionalist keeps derailing the discussion.
Unfortunately, David Silverman is not very good at avoiding those sneaky presuppositional traps. He did a decent job, but he kept taking the bait instead of chopping off the fishing pole.
One of his biggest mistakes was claiming that humans can judge an “all-knowing, all-powerful being” (God). He was wrong to say that because, when atheists judge the morality of “God,” they are not judging an all-knowing, all-powerful being. Rather, they are judging the HUMAN IDEA of an all-knowing, all-powerful being (according to how that idea is portrayed as a character in the Christian Bible). It’s possible to make those judgments without believing a shred of the mythology attached, just as it’s possible to judge Darth Vader as a literary character without believing that Star Wars really happened. On that basis, we can identify “plot holes” in the Christian mythos that reveal its true nature as a human narrative.
As Gene Roddenberry said, “We must question the story logic of an all-knowing, all-powerful God who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”
Another point that David Silverman should have countered was the one about morality and natural selection. Contrary to the implications of Dr. White, subscribing to evolutionary theory is not equivalent to believing that every action favored by natural selection is morally good. White kept implying that things like rape should be good from a “naturalistic materialist worldview” because they lead to reproduction, and reproduction is the only thing natural selection cares about. That’s absurd.
We can recognize that natural selection got us to this point without liking everything about the process. In fact, as we struggle to build a better world, it’s important for us to recognize how the perverse incentives of natural selection have stacked the deck against us. We need to recognize that the human race did not evolve to be fair, or safe, or happy, and that those qualities can only be developed in the world if we consciously rise above our “programming.” That programming includes our innate predilection for superstitious thinking, and its dire consequence, religion.
You might argue, as Dr. White did, that I have no basis for wanting to build a world like that. You might argue that my “naturalistic materialist worldview” makes everything meaningless, because we’re all just molecules bumping around in the dark (physical matter with no soul). But, if nothing else, I’m a conscious animal who’s capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. Therefore, my pleasure and pain has meaning to me, and the satisfaction or suffering of other people has meaning to them. Beyond that, we can argue about the details – about what exactly is the meaning of life – but it’s ludicrous to suggest that life is meaningless for creatures who can think and feel.
