A Refutation of Creationism by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The poet Shelley was expelled from Oxford University for writing a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism. Here, Shelley turns his attention to Creationism. 


Design must be proved before a designer can be inferred. The matter in controversy is the existence of design in the Universe, and it is not permitted to assume the contested premises and thence infer the matter in dispute. Insidiously to employ the words contrivance, design, and adaptation before these circumstances are made apparent in the Universe, thence justly inferring a contriver is a popular sophism against which it behooves us to be watchful. 

To assert that motion is an attribute of mind, that matter is inert, that every combination is the result of intelligence is also an assumption of the matter in dispute. 

Why do we admit design in any machine of human contrivance? Simply, because innumerable instances of machines having been contrived by human art are present to our mind, because we are acquainted with persons who could construct such machines; but if, having no previous knowledge of any artificial contrivance, we had accidentally found a watch upon the ground, we should have been justified in concluding that it was a thing of Nature, that it was a combination of matter with whose cause we were unacquainted, and that any attempt to account for the origin of its existence would be equally presumptuous and unsatisfactory.

The analogy, which you attempt to establish between the contrivances of human art and the various existences of the Universe, is inadmissible. We attribute these effects to human intelligence, because we know before hand that human intelligence is capable of producing them. Take away this knowledge, and the grounds of our reasoning will be destroyed. Our entire ignorance, therefore, of the Divine Nature leaves this analogy defective in its most essential point of comparison.

What consideration remains to be urged in support of the creation of the Universe by a supreme Being? Its admirable fitness for the production of certain effects, that wonderful consent of all its parts, that universal harmony by whose changeless laws innumerable systems of worlds perform their stated revolutions, and the blood is driven through the veins of the minutest animalcule that sports in the corruption of an insect’s lymph: on this account did the Universe require an intelligent Creator, because it exists producing invariable effects, and inasmuch as it is admirably organised for the production of these effects, so the more did it require a creative intelligence.

Thus have we arrived at the substance of your assertion, “That whatever exists, producing certain effects, stands in need of a Creator, and the more conspicuous is its fitness for the production of these effects, the more certain will be our conclusion that it would not have existed from eternity, but must have derived its origin from an intelligent creator.” 

In what respect then do these arguments apply to the Universe, and not apply to God? From the fitness of the Universe to its end you infer the necessity of an intelligent Creator. But if the fitness of the Universe, to produce certain effects, be thus conspicuous and evident, how much more exquisite fitness to his end must exist in the Author of this Universe? If we find great difficulty from its admirable arrangement, in conceiving that the Universe has existed from all eternity, and to resolve this difficulty suppose a Creator, how much more clearly must we perceive the necessity of this very Creator’s creation whose perfections comprehend an arrangement far more accurate and just.

The belief of an infinity of creative and created Gods, each more eminently requiring an intelligent author of his being than the foregoing, is a direct consequence of the premises, which you have stated. The assumption that the Universe is a design, leads to a conclusion that there are infinity of creative and created Gods, which is absurd. It is impossible indeed to prescribe limits to learned error, when Philosophy relinquishes experience and feeling for speculation.

Until it is clearly proved that the Universe was created, we may reasonably suppose that it has endured from all eternity. In a case where two propositions are diametrically opposite, the mind believes that which is less incomprehensible: it is easier to suppose that the Universe has existed from all eternity, than to conceive an eternal being capable of creating it. If the mind sinks beneath the weight of one, is it an alleviation to encrease the intolerability of the burthen?

A man knows, not only that he now is, but also that there was a time when he did not exist; consequently there must have been a cause. But we can only infer, from effects, causes exactly adequate to those effects. There certainly is a generative power which is effected by particular instruments; we cannot prove that it is inherent in these instruments, nor is the contrary hypothesis capable of demonstration. We admit that the generative power is incomprehensible, but to suppose that the same effects are produced by an eternal Omnipotent and Omniscient Being, leaves the cause in the same obscurity, but renders it more incomprehensible.

We can only infer from effects causes exactly adequate to those effects. An infinite number of effects demand an infinite number of causes, nor is the philosopher justified in supposing a greater connection or unity in the latter, than is perceptible in the former. The same energy cannot be at once the cause of the serpent and the sheep; of the blight by which the harvest is destroyed, and the sunshine by which it is matured; of the ferocious propensities by which man becomes a victim to himself, and of the accurate judgment by which his institutions are improved. The spirit of our accurate and exact philosophy is outraged by conclusions that contradict each other so glaringly.

The greatest, equally with the smallest motions of the Universe, are subjected to the rigid necessity of inevitable laws. These laws are the unknown causes of the known effects perceivable in the Universe. Their effects are the boundaries of our knowledge, their names the expressions of our ignorance. To suppose some existence beyond, or above them, is to invent a second and superfluous hypothesis to account for what has already been accounted for by the laws of motion and the properties of matter. I admit that the nature of these laws is incomprehensible, but the hypothesis of a Deity adds a gratuitous difficulty, which so far from alleviating those that it is adduced to explain, requires new hypotheses for the elucidation of its own inherent contradictions.

The laws of attraction and repulsion, desire and aversion, suffice to account for every phenomenon of the moral and physical world. A precise knowledge of the properties of any object is alone requisite to determine its manner of action. Let the mathematician be acquainted with the weight and volume of a cannonball, together with the degree of velocity and inclination with which it is impelled, and he will accurately delineate the course it must describe, and determine the force with which it will strike an object at a given distance. Let the influencing motive, present to the mind of any person be given, and the knowledge of his consequent conduct will result. Let the bulk and velocity of a comet be discovered, and the a tronomer, by the accurate estimation of the equal and contrary actions of the centripetal and centrifugal forces, will justly predict the period of its return.

The anomalous motions of the heavenly bodies, their unequal velocities and frequent aberrations, are corrected by that gravitation by which they are caused. The illustrious Laplace has shewn, that the approach of the Moon to the Earth, and the Earth to the Sun, is only a secular equation of a very long period, which has its maximum and minimum. The system of the Universe then is upheld solely by physical powers. The necessity of matter is the ruler of the world. It is vain philosophy that supposes more causes than are exactly adequate to explain the phenomena of things….

You assert that the construction of the animal machine, the fitness of certain animals to certain situations, the connexion between the organs of perception and that which is perceived; the relation between every thing which exists, and that which tends to preserve it in its existence, imply design. It is manifest that if the eye could not see, nor the stomach digest, the human frame could not preserve its present mode of existence. It is equally certain, however, that the elements of its composition, if they did not exist in one form, must exist in another; and that the combinations which they would form, however, that the elements of its composition, if they did not exist in one form, must exist in another; and that the combinations which they would form, must so long as they endured, derive support for their peculiar mode of being from their fitness to the circumstances of their situation.

It by no means follows, that because a being exists, performing certain functions, he was fitted by another being to the performance of these functions. So rash a conclusion would conduct, as I have before shewn, to an absurdity; and it becomes infinitely more unwarrantable from the consideration that the known laws of matter and motion, suffice to unravel, even in the present imperfect state of moral and physical science, the majority of those difficulties which the hypothesis of a Deity was invented to explain.

Doubtless no disposition of inert matter, or matter deprived of qualities, could ever have composed an animal, a tree, or even a stone. But matter deprived of qualities, is an abstraction, concerning which it is impossible to form an idea. Matter, such as we behold it, is not inert. It is infinitely active and subtile. Light, electricity and magnetism are fluids not surpassed by thought itself in tenuity and activity; like thought they are sometimes the cause and sometimes the effect of motion; and, distinct as they are from every other class of substances, with which we are acquainted, seem to possess equal claims with thought to the unmeaning distinction of immateriality.

The laws of motion and the properties of matter suffice to account for every phenomenon, or combination of phenomena exhibited in the Universe. That certain animals exist in certain climates, results from the consentaneity of their frames to the circumstances of their situation: let these circumstances be altered to a sufficient degree, and the elements of their composition must exist in some new combination no less resulting than the former from those inevitable laws by which the Universe is governed….

What then is this harmony, this order that you maintain to have required for its establishment, what it needs not for its maintenance, the agency of a supernatural intelligence? Inasmuch as the order visible in the Universe requires one cause, so does the disorder whose operation is not less clearly apparent demand another. Order and disorder are no more than modifications of our own perceptions of the relations which subsist between ourselves and external objects, and if we are justified in inferring the operation of a benevolent power from the advantages attendant on the former, the evils of the latter bear equal testimony to the activity of a malignant principle, no less pertinacious in inducing evil out of good, than the other is unremitting in procuring good from evil.

If we permit our imagination to traverse the obscure regions of possibility, we may doubtless imagine, according to the complexion of our minds, that disorder may have a relative tendency to unmingled good, or order be relatively replete with exquisite and subtile evil. To neither of these conclusions, which are equally presumptuous and unfounded, will it become the philosopher to assent. Order and disorder are expressions denoting our perceptions of what is injurious or beneficial to ourselves, or to the beings in whose welfare we are compelled to sympathise by the similarity of their conformation to our own.

A beautiful antelope panting under the fangs of a tiger, a defenceless ox, groaning beneath the butcher’s axe, is a spectacle, which instantly awakens compassion in a virtuous and unvitiated breast. Many there are, however, sufficiently hardened to the rebukes of justice and the precepts of humanity, as to regard the deliberate butchery of thousands of their species, as a theme of exultation and a source of honour, and to consider any failure in these remorseless enterprises as a defect in the system of things. The criteria of order and disorder are as various as those beings from whose opinions and feelings they result.

Populous cities are destroyed by earthquakes, and desolated by pestilence. Ambition is every where devoting its millions to incalculable calamity. Superstition, in a thousand shapes, is employed in brutalising and degrading the human species, and fitting it to endure without a murmur the oppression of its innumerable tyrants. All this is abstractedly neither good nor evil because good and evil are words employed to designate that peculiar state of our own perceptions, resulting from the encounter of any object calculated to produce pleasure or pain. Exclude the idea of relation, and the words good and evil are deprived of import.

Earthquakes are injurious to the cities that they destroy, beneficial to those whose commerce was injured by their prosperity, and indifferent to others which are too remote to be affected by their influence. Famine is good to the corn-merchant, evil to the poor, and indifferent to those whose fortunes can at all times command a superfluity. Ambition is evil to the restless bosom it inhabits, to the innumerable victims who are dragged by its ruthless thirst for infamy, to expire in every variety of anguish, to the inhabitants of the country it depopulates, and to the human race whose improvement it retards; it is indifferent with regard to the system of the Universe, and is good only to the vultures and the jackals that track the conqueror’s career, and to the worms who feast in security on the desolation of his progress. It is manifest that we cannot reason with respect to the universal system from that which only exists in relation to our own perceptions.

You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence.

The superstitions of the savage, and the religion of civilized Europe appear to you to conspire to prove a first cause. I maintain that it is from the evidence of revelation alone that this belief derives the slightest countenance. 

That credulity should be gross in proportion to the ignorance of the mind that it enslaves, is in strict consistency with the principles of human nature. The idiot, the child and the savage, agree in attributing their own passions and propensities to the inanimate substances by which they are either benefited or injured. The former become Gods and the latter Demons; hence prayers and sacrifices, by the means of which the rude Theologian imagines that he may confirm the benevolence of the one, or mitigate the malignity of the other. He has averted the wrath of a powerful enemy by supplications and submission; he has secured the assistance of his neighbour by offerings; he ha felt his own anger subside before the entreaties of a vanquished foe, and has cherished gratitude for the kindness of another. Therefore does he believe that the elements will listen to his vows. He is capable of love and hatred towards his fellow beings, and is variously impelled by those principles to benefit or injure them. The source of his error is sufficiently obvious. 

When the winds, the waves and the atmosphere act in such a manner as to thwart or forward his designs, he attributes to them the same propensities of whose existence within himself he is conscious when he is instigated by benefits to kindness, or by injuries to revenge. The bigot of the woods can form no conception of beings possessed of properties differing from his own: it requires, indeed, a mind considerably tinctured with science, and enlarged by cultivation to contemplate itself, not as the centre and model of the Universe, but as one of the infinitely various multitude of beings of which it is actually composed.

There is no attribute of God which is not either borrowed from the passions and powers of the human mind, or which is not a negation. Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Infinity, Immutability, Incomprehensibility, and Immateriality, are all words that designate properties and powers peculiar to organised beings, with the addition of negations, by which the idea of limitation is excluded.

That the frequency of a belief in God (for it is not Universal) should be any argument in its favour, none to whom the innumerable mistakes of men are familiar, will assert. It is among men of genius and science that Atheism alone is found, but among these alone is cherished an hostility to those errors, with which the illiterate and vulgar are infected.

How small is the proportion of whose who really believe in God, to the thousands who are prevented by their occupations from ever bestowing a serious thought upon the subject, and the millions who worship butterflies, bones, feathers, monkeys, calabashes and serpents. The word God, like other abstractions, signifies the agreement of certain propositions, rather than the presence of any idea. If we found our belief in the existence of God on the universal consent of mankind, we are duped by the most palpable of sophisms. The word God cannot mean at the same time an ape, a snake, a bone, a calabash, a Trinity, and a Unity. Nor can that belief be accounted universal against which men of powerful intellect and spotless virtue have in every age protested….

Intelligence is that attribute of the Deity, which you hold to be most apparent in the Universe. Intelligence is only known to us as a mode of animal being. We cannot conceive intelligence distinct from sensation and perception, which are attributes to organized bodies. To assert that God is intelligent, is to assert that he has ideas; and Locke has proved that ideas result from sensation. Sensation can exist only in an organised body, an organized body is necessarily limited both in extent and operation. The God of the rational Theosophist is a vast and wise animal….

Thus, from the principles of that reason to which you so rashly appealed as the ultimate arbiter of our dispute, have I shewn that the popular arguments in favour of the being of God are totally destitute of colour. I have shewn the absurdity of attributing intelligence to the cause of those effects that we perceive in the Universe, and the fallacy that lurks in the argument from design. I have shewn that order is no more than a peculiar manner of contemplating the operation of necessary agents, that mind is the effect, not the cause of motion, that power is the attribute, not the origin of Being. I have proved that we can have no evidence of the existence of a God from the principles of reason

Man's Life as His Moral Standard

The philosophy of objectivism is not really taken seriously by academics (arguably it's not even philosophy). But nevertheless, here's an interesting essay on how if we accept the concept of a "moral standard", where that standard comes from...

Life is the process of self-sustaining and self-generating action. Life requires action, and action requires values. Philosophy in general, and ethics in particular, attempt to answer the questions, "What do I do?" and "Why?" People study philosophy so they can know how to live their life.

So that you can live life successfully and happily, you must learn which values to hold and how to achieve them -- this is your life as your moral standard. All moral questions (questions of right action) are questions of how to live happily and successfully, and all moral principles must be measured against how they promote and benefit your life and happiness. Your life as your moral standard holds all things promoting your life as the good.

To every living thing, there is one primary choice, and that is to live or not -- to engage in the action required to further its own life or to engage in action that destroys its own life. The only other alternative is death. Choosing life as your standard of value is a pre-moral choice. It cannot be judged as right or wrong; but once chosen, it is the role of morality to help man to live the best life possible.

The opposite of choosing life is altruism: the moral doctrine that holds death as its moral standard. It holds sacrifice as the only good, and all things "selfish" as evil. According to altruism, it doesn't matter what you do, as long as it does not further your life it is considered good. The more consistently a person is altruistic, the closer their actions are to suicide. The consistent altruist will give up every bit of food he owns to other people because that is what he considers good, and die because of it.

Your life as your standard does not mean Hedonism -- the spur of the moment instant gratification, doing whatever you feel like. Your life as your standard means acting in your rational self-interest. Rational self-interest takes into account the long-term effects of every action.

Your life as your standard does not mean trampling on other people to get what you want. This is not in your rational self-interest. It is in your interest to be benevolent.

Nor does your life as your standard mean cheating people to get ahead, even if they don't realize it and you never get caught. Fraud is not in your rational self-interest because you lose your independence and you sacrifice honesty to an unreality that you have to maintain to perpetrate your fraud. This is self-destructive in the long run.

In order to know what is good, which actions are objectively in a person's self-interest, we develop virtues which are principles of action.

Man's Life as His Moral Standard

Also recommended...

http://www.amazon.com/Morality-Needs-God-Joseph-Rowlands-ebook/dp/B005LU7XC2

The Morality Anthology

Over the years I have been asked to explain how morality works in various discussions with Christian Apologists.    This blog contains several explanations, with some overlaps, so here is a summary of the morality-related posts:


1) A Universal Moral Standard

• This addresses the questions of how it's possible to have moral standards without God or Scripture and why one doesn't need God to be a good person.

2) The Moral Consequences of Atheism by JL Mackie

• Religious apologists sometimes claim that atheism results in a lack of morality or even the end of civilisation. This myth has been dealt with by countless philosophers and authors, as in this essay by J. L. Mackie.

3) Explaining Morality to Christian Apologists

• This post addresses the Christian apologist claims that moral relativism is a philosophy (when it's actually an empirical fact) and atheists don't know right from wrong (hen they obviously do!)

4) The Moral Argument - Refuted

• In his "Handbook of Christian Apologetics", Peter Kreeft provides 20 arguments for the existence of God, including what he calls "The Moral Argument".  This post highlights the flaws in his argument. 

5) Why I am an unbeliever by Carl van Doren

• Carl Van Doren was professor of English at Columbia University and a biographer of Benjamin Franklin. In this essay he confronts the tired, old argument that without faith there can be no foundation for ethics.

6) Morality does not come from scripture

• A Christian Apologist argues that morality comes from the Bible (thereby giving him ownership of the moral high ground). This post explains how his argument is back to front in that religion and scripture are defined by human morality. It also explains the biological and cultural origins and development of morality. 

7) Christian apologists don't get moral relativism

• A Christian apologist attacks atheism by equating it with Moral Relativism, and then defines Moral Relativism as an extreme form of morality where anything goes. So that's two mistakes for the price of one!

8) An Objectivist Point of View

• An explanation of "moral standards" from an objectivist point of view.

Why I Am an Unbeliever - Carl Van Doren

Why I Am an Unbeliever by Carl Van Doren

Carl Van Doren (1885–1950) was professor of English at Columbia University and biographer of Benjamin Franklin. Here, he confronts the tired, old argument that without faith there can be no foundation for ethics.

Let us be honest. There have always been men and women without the gift of faith. They lack it, do not desire it, and would not know what to do with it if they had it. They are apparently no less intelligent than the faithful, and apparently no less virtuous. How great the number of them is it would be difficult to say, but they exist in all communities and are most numerous where there is most enlightenment. As they have no organisation and no creed, they can of course have no official spokesman. Nevertheless, any one of them who speaks out can be trusted to speak, in a way, for all of them. Like the mystics, the unbelievers, wherever found, are essentially of one spirit and one language. I cannot, however, pretend to represent more than a single complexion of unbelief.

The very terms that I am forced to use put me at the outset in a trying position. Belief, being first in the field, naturally took a positive term for itself and gave a negative term to unbelief. As an unbeliever, I am therefore obliged to seem merely to dissent from the believers no matter how much more I may do. Actually I do more. What they call unbelief, I call belief. Doubtless I was born to it, but I have tested it with reading and speculation, and I hold it firmly.

What I have referred to as the gift of faith I do not, to be exact, regard as a gift. I regard it, rather, as a survival from an earlier stage of thinking and feeling: in short, as a form of superstition. It, and not the thing I am forced to name unbelief, seems to me negative. It denies the reason. It denies the evidences in the case, in the sense that it insists upon introducing elements that come not from the facts as shown but from the imaginations and wishes of mortals.

Unbelief does not deny the reason and it sticks as closely as it can to the evidences. I shall have to be more explicit. When I say I am an unbeliever, I do not mean merely that I am no Mormon or no Methodist, or even that I am no Christian or no Buddhist. These seem to me relatively unimportant divisions and subdivisions of belief. I mean that I do not believe in any god that has ever been devised, in any doctrine that has ever claimed to be revealed, in any scheme of immortality that has ever been expounded.

As to gods, they have been, I find, countless, but even the names, of most of them lie in the deep compost which is known as civilisation, and the memories of few of them are green. There does not seem to me to be good reason for holding that some of them are false and some of them, or one of them, true. Each was created by the imaginations and wishes of men who could not account for the behavior of the universe in any other satisfactory way.

But no god has satisfied his worshipers forever. Sooner or later they have realised that the attributes once ascribed to him, such as selfishness or lustfulness or vengefulness, are unworthy of the moral systems that men have evolved among themselves. Thereupon follows the gradual doom of the god, however long certain of the faithful may cling to his cult. In the case of the god who still survives in the loyalty of men after centuries of scrutiny, it can always be noted that little besides his name has endured. His attributes wil have been so revised that he is really another god. Nor is this objection met by the argument that the concept of the god has been purified while the essence of him survived. In the concept alone can he be studied; the essence eludes the grasp of the human mind. 

I may prefer among the various gods that god who seems to me most thoroughly purged of what I regard as undivine elements, but I make my choice, obviously, upon principles that come from observation of the conduct of men. Whether a god has been created in the image of gross desires or of pure desires does not greatly matter. The difference proves merely that different men have desired gods and have furnished themselves with the gods they were able to conceive. Behind all their conceptions still lies the abyss of ignorance. There is no trustworthy evidence as to a god’s absolute existence.

Nor does the thing called revelation, as I see it, carry the proof further. All the prophets swear that a god speaks through them, and yet they prophesy contradictions. Once more, men must choose in accordance with their own principles. That a revelation was announced long ago makes it difficult to examine, but does not otherwise attest its soundness. That some revealed doctrine has lasted for ages and has met the needs of many generations proves that it is the kind of doctrine that endures and satisfies, but not that it is divine. Secular doctrines that turned out to be perfectly false have also endured and satisfied. 

If belief in a god has to proceed from the assumption that he exists, belief in revelation has first to proceed from the assumption that a god exists and then to go further to the assumption that he communicates his will to certain men. But both are mere assumptions. Neither is, in the present state of knowledge, at all capable of proof. Suppose a god did exist, and suppose he did communicate his will to any of his creatures. What man among them could comprehend that language? What man could take that dictation? And what man could overwhelmingly persuade his fellows that he had been selected and that they must accept him as authentic? The best they could do would be to have faith in two assumptions and to test the revealed will by its correspondence to their imaginations and wishes. 

At this point it may be contended that revelation must be real because it arouses so much response in so many human bosoms. This does not follow without a leap of the reason into the realm of hypothesis. Nothing is proved by this general response except that men are everywhere very much alike. They have the same members, the same organs, the same glands, in varying degrees of activity. Being so much alike, they tend to agree upon a few primary desires. Fortunate the religion by which those desires appear to be gratified.

One desire by which the human mind is often teased is the desire to live after death. It is not difficult to explain. Men live so briefly that their plans far outrun their ability to execute them. They see themselves cut off before their will to live is exhausted. Naturally enough, they wish to survive, and, being men, believe in their chances for survival. But their wishes afford no possible proof. Life covers the earth with wishes, as it covers the earth with plants and animals. No wish, however, is evidence of anything beyond itself. Let millions hold it, and it is still only a wish. Let each separate race exhibit it, and it is still only a wish. Let the wisest hold it as strongly as the foolishest, and it is still only a wish. Whoever says he knows that immortality is a fact is merely hoping that it is. And whoever argues, as men often do, that life would be meaningless without immortality because it alone brings justice into human fate, must first argue, as no man has ever quite convincingly done, that life has an unmistakable meaning and that it is just. I, at least, am convinced on neither of these two points. Though I am, I believe, familiar with all the arguments, I do not find any of them notably better than the others. All I see is that the wish for immortality is widespread, that certain schemes of immortality imagined from it have here or there proved more agreeable than rival schemes and that they have been more generally accepted. The religions that provide these successful schemes I can credit with keener insight into human wishes than other religions have had, but I cannot credit them with greater authority as regards the truth. They are all guesswork.

That I think thus about gods, revelation, and immortality ought to be sufficient answer to the question why I am an unbeliever. It would be if the question were always reasonably asked, but it is not. There is also an emotional aspect to be considered. Many believers, I am told, have the same doubts, and yet have the knack of putting their doubts to sleep and entering ardently into the communion of the faithful. The process is incomprehensible to me. So far as I understand it, such believers are moved by their desires to the extent of letting them rule not only their conduct but also their thoughts. An unbeliever’s desires have, apparently, less power over his reason. Perhaps this is only another way of saying that his strongest desire is to be as reasonable as he can. However the condition be interpreted, the consequence is the same. An honest unbeliever can no more make himself believe against his reason than he can make himself free of the pull of gravitation. For myself, I feel no obligation whatever to believe. I might once have felt it prudent to keep silence, for I perceive that the race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity; but just now, happily, in this breathing-spell of toleration, there are so many varieties of belief that even an unbeliever may speak out.

In so doing, I must answer certain secondary questions which unbelievers are often asked. Does it not persuade me, one question runs, to realise that many learned men have pondered upon supernatural matters and have been won over to belief? I answer, not in the least. With respect to the gods, revelation, and immortality no man is enough more learned than his fellows to have the right to insist that they follow him into the regions about which all men are ignorant. I am not a particle more impressed by some good old man’s conviction that he is in the confidence of the gods than I am by any boy’s conviction that there are fish in the horse-pond from which no fish has ever been taken. Does it not impress me to see some good old woman serene in conviction that there are fish in the horse-pond from which no fish has ever been taken. Does it not impress me to see some good old woman serene in the faith of a blessed immortality? No more than it impresses me to see a little girl full of trust in the universal munificence of a Christmas saint. Am I not moved by the spectacle of a great tradition of worship which has broadened out over continents and which brings all its worshipers punctually together in the observance of noble and dignified rites? Yes, but I am moved precisely by that as I am moved by the spectacle of men everywhere putting their seed seasonably in the ground, tending its increase, and patiently gathering in their harvests.

Finally, do I never suspect in myself some moral obliquity, or do I not at least regret the bleak outlook of unbelief? On these points I am, in my own mind, as secure as I know how to be. There is no moral obligation to believe what is unbelievable any more than there is a moral obligation to do what is undoable. Even in religion, honesty is a virtue. Obliquity, I should say, shows itself rather in prudent pretense or in voluntary self-delusion. Furthermore, the unbelievers have, as I read history, done less harm to the world than the believers. They have not filled it with savage wars or snarled casuistries, with crusades or persecutions, with complacency or ignorance. They have, instead, done what they could to fill it with knowledge and beauty, with temperance and justice, with manners and laughter. They have numbered among themselves some of the most distinguished specimens of mankind. And when they have been undistinguished, they have surely not been inferior to the believers in the fine art of minding their own affairs and so of enlarging the territories of peace.

Nor is the outlook of unbelief, to my way of thinking, a bleak one. It is merely rooted in courage and not in fear. Belief is still in the plight of those ancient races who out of a lack of knowledge peopled the forest with satyrs and the sea with ominous monsters and the ends of the earth with misshapen anthropophagi. So the pessimists among believers have peopled the void with witches and devils, and the optimists among them have peopled it with angels and gods. Both alike have been afraid to furnish the house of life simply. They have cluttered it with the furniture of faith. Much of this furniture, the most reasonable unbeliever would never think of denying, is very beautiful. There are breathing myths, there are comforting legends, there are consoling hopes. But they have, as the unbeliever sees them, no authority beyond that of poetry. That is, they may captivate if they can, but they have no right to insist upon conquering. 

Beliefs, like tastes, may differ. The unbeliever’s taste and belief are austere. In the wilderness of worlds he does not yield to the temptation to belittle the others by magnifying his own. Among the dangers of chance he does not look for safety to any watchful providence whose special concern he imagines he is. Though he knows that knowledge is imperfect, he trusts it alone. If he takes, therefore, the less delight in metaphysics, he takes the more in physics. Each discovery of a new truth brings him a vivid joy. He builds himself up, so far as he can, upon truth, and barricades himself with it. Thus doing, he never sags into superstition, but grows steadily more robust and blithe in his courage. However many fears he may prove unable to escape, he does not multiply them in his imagination and then combat them with his wishes. Austerity may be simplicity and not bleakness.

Does the unbeliever lack certain of the gentler virtues of the believer, the quiet confidence, the unquestioning obedience? He may, yet it must always be remembered that the greatest believers are the greatest tyrants. If the freedom rather than the tyranny of faith is to better the world, then the betterment lies in the hands, I think, of the unbelievers. At any rate, I take my stand with them.

The Appeal to Authority

Also known as argumentum ab auctoritate)

This is a common fallacy which attempts to establish an inductive argument from a generalisation or a cherry picked example. It takes this form:

A is an authority on a particular topic
A says something about that topic
A is probably correct

The argument is fallacious because, although authorities can be correct in judgments related to their area of expertise more often than laypersons, they can still come to the wrong judgments. Therefore, the appeal to authority is not a generally reliable argument for establishing facts.

It is often used by referring to an expert whilst ignoring the fact that other experts disagree.  

A variation is the Appeal to Anonymous Authorities where the authority is not mentioned (for example "scientists say...")

Example:
Scientists agree that the universe is finely tuned.

Explanation:
Which scientists? What about the scientists that don't agree? In what sense are these scientists using the term "finely tuned"? How can a scientist be an authority on "fine tuning" when it is not a scientific concept? And so on.

Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor

This is a problem-solving principle attributed to the 13th Century theologian William of Ockham. The principle can be stated thus:

Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

It can also be written as two principles:

The Principle of Plurality - Plurality should not be posited without necessity

The Principle of Parsimony - It is pointless to do with more what is done with less

Occam’s razor means one doesn't add wasteful things to an explanation.  If you have a few hypotheses that could explain an observation, it is usually best to start with the simplest one.  Note that Occam's razor is not a law, but a rule of thumb, used to guide research down the easiest course.

In physics and mathematics,  what's important is the simplicity of equations, not the simplicity of the solutions. Currently it is possible to describe the physical world using two equations. That's parsimony. (One equation would be even better!)

Example 1

The turbulent flow of water can be described by the Navier-Stokes equations.  These are very simple. But the solutions of those equations for say, Niagara Falls, is extremely complicated. 

Example 2

Imagine I leave a saucer of milk outside overnight, and in the morning the milk has gone. No one saw what happened to the milk. Let's consider two possibilities:

1. The neighbour's cat drank it

or

2. Loki the god of mischief made the milk disappear.

Occam tells us to reject option 2, not because it refers to Loki, but because it requires the introduction of an entity that might not exist. There is a plausible explanation that requires only existing entities (the cat next door, which is a fact). Both solutions are equally simple but the Loki hypothesis includes an entity that is not necessary (and hence contravenes the principle of plurality). However - it could have been Loki - it's impossible to prove it wasn't (unless we used CCTV to monitor the milk overnight. But even then, maybe Loki was disguised as a cat).

Example 3

There are conspiracy theories surrounding the NASA moon landings where some people argue that the Moon Landings were filmed in a studio, as part of an elaborate hoax. But the conspiracy theories contain hundreds of suppositions, requiring millions of people to tell lies or hide the truth.  There are hundreds of "ifs".  The NASA argument on the other hand, is straightforward. That doesn't mean it's true, but it is more likely to be correct.

Example 4

Ptolemy's epicycle model of the solar system included multiple/ elements, and every time an observation didn't fit the model, more elements were added. This was replaced by a much simpler theory (the earth is not the centre of the solar system but rather, the planets orbit the sun) which explained the same facts as Ptolemy's model.

The Moral Argument - Refuted

These are the standard objections to argument #14 on the list provided here...

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

The argument is presented as follows:

1 Real moral obligation is a fact. We are really, truly, objectively obligated to do good and avoid evil.

2 Either the atheistic view of reality is correct or the "religious" one.

3 But the atheistic one is incompatible with there being moral obligation.

4 Therefore the "religious" view of reality is correct

Common Objections

Overall the argument does not appear to be an argument for God but rather it is an argument that objective morality (if it exists) is somehow a requirement of a "religious view". Does that mean any religion? If we adopt Buddhism or Humanism as our religion, and accept that suffering is an aspect of sentient life and morality comes from the knowledge, learning and emotions of human beings, then a god isn't necessary (but of course, she/he/it might exist anyway). If the authors are arguing that Christianity is the source of moral obligation, they are ignoring the evidence that secular moral codes existed before the Bible (such as the Code of Hammurabi). The use of the word "atheistic" as the only alternative to "religious" is also misleading. Perhaps we should interpret "atheistic" and "religious" as "physicalist" and "nonphysicalist," respectively. 

Regarding the detail of the argument...

Premise 1 is unsupported. Also - who are the "we" that it refers to? If it is the human race, then premise 3 is confusing because premise 1 is therefore stating that "we are all " (atheists and theists) "really, truly, objectively obligated to do good and avoid evil."  The claim that "our duties arise from the way things really are, and not simply from our desires or subjective dispositions" supports a biological and empirical explanation for morality. Our "desires and subjective dispositions" are also a result of our biology.  Nothing in this premise indicates that God exists. 

Premise 2 doesn't make sense as written but perhaps does make some sense if we assume the author meant "physicalist" and " non-physicalist". 

Premise 3 asserts that the atheistic view of reality is incompatible with there being moral obligation. This is unsupported and factually incorrect. An "atheistic view of reality" is a view of reality that does not include gods but it is obviously possible to have moral obligations without gods. This premise as written is identical to saying that morality has to come from God, but that's what the argument is trying to prove, so it's just a circular argument. And even if we assume for the sake of argument that belief in a god led to superior moral behaviour, that would not demonstrate that God existed (cf Father Christmas).

If we change the wording of this premise so it refers to "physicalist" and "non physicalist" then again the argument fails because there are "physicalist" explanations for the source of moral obligations. For example, we are obligated to the people around us because we literally cannot live without their cooperation - and vice versa. 

The argument confuses cause with explanation. Premise 1 states that moral obligation is a universal fact. Premises 2 and 3 are arguing about different explanations for why normal people share the same moral obligations and ruling out the physicalist explanation for no apparent reason.

The conclusion makes a sudden leap from "morality" to "reality". The religious view of reality includes a vast number of gods, supernatural entities and incredible stories promoted as being historical fact. Whatever argument there may be regarding the morality of atheists, this is not sufficient to assert that the religious view of reality is correct. It is also wrong to assume there is a "religious view of reality" (singular). There are thousands of religions and thousands of different and contradictory views of reality, each presented as factual.

There are also multiple and contradictory religious views on moral issues, for example: euthanasia; stem cell research; abortion; capital punishment; healthcare; foreign aid; gay marriage; birth control; pacifism: etc. In other words, there is no single "religious view", not even within a single religion. The sacred texts used to justify moral decisions are interpreted to suit the moral views if the interpreter. This is why several people can interpret a sacred text in contradictory ways and simultaneously vouch for the accuracy and authority of the source text.

Some further general points...

Morality has no meaning unless there are sentient beings who are capable of experiencing suffering and understanding the suffering of others. It doesn't matter if they are atheists or theists. It doesn't make sense to assume there are objective moral principles existing without such sentient beings to judge and measure morality. Human morality is experienced, discussed and analysed by human beings, and always has been. Moral standards are re-assessed continuously over time, as cultures evolve. 

If I say there I have an obligation to feed the hungry, I would be stating a fact about my wants and desires and nothing else. I would be saying that I want the hungry to be fed, and that I choose to act on that desire. Neither I nor anyone else is really obliged to feed the hungry. 

The authors are presenting their arguments from a Christians point of view, so if they were to counter that their religion obliges them to feed the hungry, we could, for example, point to the millions of Christians who don't feel obliged to feed the hungry, who have money saved that they could use to feed the hungry, but choose not to. If there are Christians who say they only feed the hungry because they are obliged to do so by their religion, then it implies they are being commanded to behave in a charitable way, rather than being charitable.

(Obviously if the authors of this argument were representing a different religion, the logic would be the same. The word "Christian" could be replaced with any other religion.)