A Letter
My response to the "Does God Exist?" debate on March 24 2010.
Dear Dr. William Craig,
Your admission during the “Does God Exist?” debate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, that acquaintances of yours in Haiti vehemently prayed for a large natural disaster shows the disgusting moral character of the Christian religion. If you have forgotten the letter to which I refer, it was from Christian missionaries currently in Haiti, who wrote about their horrific hopes for a earthquake or tsunami or other great catastrophe, in order for the disaster to serve as a catalyst for great change. In the letter, they so celebrated the recent earthquake in Haiti, they praised God for the service it provided for Haiti, and the missionaries. Your opponent, Dr. Tooley, passed over this remark, I hope, with the hope that people would apply his argument against the existence of God defined as an omnipotent, omnipresent, and perfectly good being, using an argument showing the evil which the Christian God has perpetrated and allows to go on is inconsistent with the definition of God, therefore God, as defined, does not exist. But I will here make explicit the unacceptable immorality of praying for disaster, and, if your god is the cause of the great suffering of Haiti, I will show how God is not worthy of worship (which leaves aside the point that humanity should not worship anything anyhow.)
First, your point that anything God wills is moral, can be granted, but does not affect human morality. You say yourself, using the example of a human taking a gun out and killing you on stage, that human will and actions can be immoral. (You leave out, assuming God can act through a person, that God could act through a human, rendering whatever that human did moral, leaving the question, how can we punish a human on earth without knowing if God had in fact acted through that person? This obviously has large implications for human morality, for if we acted against a human, whom had been the tool of God’s will, we would be acting against God, rendering us immoral.) So, given human will and actions can be immoral, then humanity needs to construct a moral system separate from that of God’s morality (because humans cannot do whatever they please, and the morality set forth in the various religious texts are not sufficient for all human conditions, nor do the texts provide justification for each moral statement beyond using God’s will, which we have seen is insufficient. God has a different moral code from that of humans, therefore we can not base human morality on God’s morality. Otherwise, this may leave humans acting immorally.) All of this is to say that even if God caused or willed the earthquake in Haiti, human will and action shan’t be judged by if it corresponds with God’s will. If it was, our legal systems would have no justification, for someone can easily claim they are in accordance with God’s will, and no one would be able to prove otherwise. This shows that your friends’ comments and prayers about the Haiti earthquake can have no justification rest on God’s will. This leaves humanity to judge these people with our own constructed moral system. This is how I can safely say that I was sickened by the comments you made. To will the suffering and death of thousands of people is immoral. That’s not to say anyone is responsible for the earthquake, but it leaves questions about the motives of the Christian missionaries.
The last question I want to ask is: does a god who wills suffering and large-scale unnecessary massacre deserve to be worshipped? I find this question of utmost importance and consequence, yet I have never heard it asked, at least in modern theological discourse. Looking at religious texts and the supposed evidence of God’s actions, it is a difficult case to make to say God is a perfectly moral being. Thus to make this argument, one must say anything God wills or does is moral (convoluted reasoning is used in regards to whether it is good because God says so, or does Good exist as some form to which God prescribes.) As shown in my previous argument, even if we grant God morality, we still may not say human morality is of the same nature. The question becomes; is human morality potentially better than God’s morality? In other words, can humans be more moral than God? Given both the history of God and the history of humanity, one could say both have been equally immoral, albeit God has infinite resources of power making it possible for it to stop humans from acting immorally, but that can be ignored here. The history of humanity has also shown great actions of goodness, great moral actions. The same cannot be said of God. God often corrects human behavior using genocide and massacres. This is no ideal, in fact it is often taught as the complete most evil way to solve problems. At this point, the only good thing God has done is create life, but that in-itself is not a moral action, nor does it entice humanity to worship, for I don’t see many people worshiping their parents, whom are the direct cause of each individual. Yet Christians still say humans should worship such a being. I think humanity can certainly ascribe to a higher morality than this, then death and suffering. I have my own ideas on how morality can be constructed socially, a morality which accounts for individual freedom and collective needs, and doesn’t use fear and Hell as the ultimate reason to ascribe to such a morality. But, here, let’s leave it at the fact that humans can have a morality higher than “all is permitted.”
Finally I just want to reiterate the argument Ivan makes in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. He simply makes the point that even if God exists, and all it does is moral, that even if Hell exists, it is not worth worshipping God. For to worship God is to accept all the evil (“moral”) acts God has willed throughout human history. It is to accept all the injustice and unnecessary suffering of innocent people, i.e. children. Ivan thinks the price of admission is too high, he would give back his ticket to heaven, in order not to accept what God has willed or allows to occur. Ivan makes the ultimate rejection of the Christian God, and the ultimate affirmation of humanity’s potential and makes a point to say humanity can do better than this. So, if God exists, it is not necessary to worship such a god, and may be more moral to reject the worship of such a god.
I’d like to go on to say how Christian Morality denies humanity its potential (albeit it is certainly not the only system that doesn’t empower humanity with morality.) But I will leave it as is. I will simply say that what the Christian missionaries in Haiti were happy for was mass suffering and death. They were praising God for killing innocent children. It was not God who mobilized and organized mass efforts to save the people of Haiti. Nor was it God who dedicated time and resources to the on-going effort of restoring and rebuilding Haiti. Humanity came to the rescue, not God.
Sincerely,
My response to the "Does God Exist?" debate on March 24 2010.
Dear Dr. William Craig,
Your admission during the “Does God Exist?” debate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, that acquaintances of yours in Haiti vehemently prayed for a large natural disaster shows the disgusting moral character of the Christian religion. If you have forgotten the letter to which I refer, it was from Christian missionaries currently in Haiti, who wrote about their horrific hopes for a earthquake or tsunami or other great catastrophe, in order for the disaster to serve as a catalyst for great change. In the letter, they so celebrated the recent earthquake in Haiti, they praised God for the service it provided for Haiti, and the missionaries. Your opponent, Dr. Tooley, passed over this remark, I hope, with the hope that people would apply his argument against the existence of God defined as an omnipotent, omnipresent, and perfectly good being, using an argument showing the evil which the Christian God has perpetrated and allows to go on is inconsistent with the definition of God, therefore God, as defined, does not exist. But I will here make explicit the unacceptable immorality of praying for disaster, and, if your god is the cause of the great suffering of Haiti, I will show how God is not worthy of worship (which leaves aside the point that humanity should not worship anything anyhow.)
First, your point that anything God wills is moral, can be granted, but does not affect human morality. You say yourself, using the example of a human taking a gun out and killing you on stage, that human will and actions can be immoral. (You leave out, assuming God can act through a person, that God could act through a human, rendering whatever that human did moral, leaving the question, how can we punish a human on earth without knowing if God had in fact acted through that person? This obviously has large implications for human morality, for if we acted against a human, whom had been the tool of God’s will, we would be acting against God, rendering us immoral.) So, given human will and actions can be immoral, then humanity needs to construct a moral system separate from that of God’s morality (because humans cannot do whatever they please, and the morality set forth in the various religious texts are not sufficient for all human conditions, nor do the texts provide justification for each moral statement beyond using God’s will, which we have seen is insufficient. God has a different moral code from that of humans, therefore we can not base human morality on God’s morality. Otherwise, this may leave humans acting immorally.) All of this is to say that even if God caused or willed the earthquake in Haiti, human will and action shan’t be judged by if it corresponds with God’s will. If it was, our legal systems would have no justification, for someone can easily claim they are in accordance with God’s will, and no one would be able to prove otherwise. This shows that your friends’ comments and prayers about the Haiti earthquake can have no justification rest on God’s will. This leaves humanity to judge these people with our own constructed moral system. This is how I can safely say that I was sickened by the comments you made. To will the suffering and death of thousands of people is immoral. That’s not to say anyone is responsible for the earthquake, but it leaves questions about the motives of the Christian missionaries.
The last question I want to ask is: does a god who wills suffering and large-scale unnecessary massacre deserve to be worshipped? I find this question of utmost importance and consequence, yet I have never heard it asked, at least in modern theological discourse. Looking at religious texts and the supposed evidence of God’s actions, it is a difficult case to make to say God is a perfectly moral being. Thus to make this argument, one must say anything God wills or does is moral (convoluted reasoning is used in regards to whether it is good because God says so, or does Good exist as some form to which God prescribes.) As shown in my previous argument, even if we grant God morality, we still may not say human morality is of the same nature. The question becomes; is human morality potentially better than God’s morality? In other words, can humans be more moral than God? Given both the history of God and the history of humanity, one could say both have been equally immoral, albeit God has infinite resources of power making it possible for it to stop humans from acting immorally, but that can be ignored here. The history of humanity has also shown great actions of goodness, great moral actions. The same cannot be said of God. God often corrects human behavior using genocide and massacres. This is no ideal, in fact it is often taught as the complete most evil way to solve problems. At this point, the only good thing God has done is create life, but that in-itself is not a moral action, nor does it entice humanity to worship, for I don’t see many people worshiping their parents, whom are the direct cause of each individual. Yet Christians still say humans should worship such a being. I think humanity can certainly ascribe to a higher morality than this, then death and suffering. I have my own ideas on how morality can be constructed socially, a morality which accounts for individual freedom and collective needs, and doesn’t use fear and Hell as the ultimate reason to ascribe to such a morality. But, here, let’s leave it at the fact that humans can have a morality higher than “all is permitted.”
Finally I just want to reiterate the argument Ivan makes in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. He simply makes the point that even if God exists, and all it does is moral, that even if Hell exists, it is not worth worshipping God. For to worship God is to accept all the evil (“moral”) acts God has willed throughout human history. It is to accept all the injustice and unnecessary suffering of innocent people, i.e. children. Ivan thinks the price of admission is too high, he would give back his ticket to heaven, in order not to accept what God has willed or allows to occur. Ivan makes the ultimate rejection of the Christian God, and the ultimate affirmation of humanity’s potential and makes a point to say humanity can do better than this. So, if God exists, it is not necessary to worship such a god, and may be more moral to reject the worship of such a god.
I’d like to go on to say how Christian Morality denies humanity its potential (albeit it is certainly not the only system that doesn’t empower humanity with morality.) But I will leave it as is. I will simply say that what the Christian missionaries in Haiti were happy for was mass suffering and death. They were praising God for killing innocent children. It was not God who mobilized and organized mass efforts to save the people of Haiti. Nor was it God who dedicated time and resources to the on-going effort of restoring and rebuilding Haiti. Humanity came to the rescue, not God.
Sincerely,
Eric Virzi
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