BTW there's also a great article by Hauser and Singer here on this same theme.
On another blog, FideCogitActio, some theists of a "classical" stripe (that's to say, like Brian Davies, Edward Feser) are criticisng the Evil God Challenge (or I suppose, trying to show how it can be met, or sidestepped). The main post includes this: In book I, chapter 39 , Aquinas argues that “there cannot be evil in God” (in Deo non potest esse malum). Atheists like Law must face the fact that, if the words are to retain any sense, “God” simply cannot be “evil”. As my comments in the thread at Feser’s blog aimed to show, despite how much he mocks “the privation theory of evil,” Law himself cannot escape its logic: his entire argument requires that the world ought to appear less evil if it is to be taken as evidence of a good God. Even though he spurns the idea that evil is a privation of good, his account of an evil world is parasitic on a good ideal; this is no surprise, though, since all evil is parasitic on good ( SCG I, 11 ). Based on the conclusions of se...
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Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism ans Sikhism are major religions to arise in India. They have different perceptions about liberation etc. But they have EXACTLY the same set of ethical rules or guidelines or laws etc.
At least this living example proves that morality can be independent of religion.
R. C. Sharma,
rcscwc@yahoo.co.in
However, in reference to the Hauser/Singer article, I'm getting tired of atheists passing off reductionist explanations of moral phenomena as a 'moral faculty' of the mind. It's not. It simply a beneficial adaptive strategy that explains certain behaviour but has no moral content (in the same way that reciprocal altruism isn't really altruism—it just looks like it).
Dawkins does the same thing in Chapter 6 of The God Delusion, and he has the gall to bookend it (before and after) with the observation that the Christian who behaves 'morally' out of fear of hellfire isn't behaving morally at all because they're not displaying moral agency. No, they're not behaving morally, but neither is the person who dives into a river to save a drowning child because they're hardwired to do so. The same argument applies to both.
I starting to notice this line of argument more and more frequently, and from people who know better. Hauser, Singer, Dawkins etc. are all-too-well aware that they're being misleading with these claims (at least Sam Harris openly acknowledges it - p.185, End of Faith). While I understand why they do it, I think they should just be open about the conclusions that current research is drawing.
Cheers,
Chris.
PhilosophicalMisadventures.com