(I’m making an exception to my new policy of avoiding religious debate because this subject is closely related to morality and even many atheists seem to accept intrinsic value as a given.)

“Knowingly destroying something with intrinsic value is wrong by definition.”

What if doing so preserves or promotes some greater (in quality or quantity) value elsewhere?

“… it is a problem for atheism that it cannot account for this intrinsic value.”

This is only a problem if humans do have intrinsic value. Otherwise, this criticism is ridiculous. As atheists, we have two choices:

1.) Show how the existence of God has nothing to do with intrinsic value, thereby making the theist vulnerable to his own criticism.

2.) Demand evidence for intrinsic value. The only evidence the theist ever provides is his intuition or guilt in response to doing wrong to a being that supposedly has intrinsic value, but this is not evidence. Intuition is unreliable and malleable and interpreting it makes it doubly subjective. Guilt is more easily and thoroughly explained as a product of evolution and culture.

The first more effectively invalidates the theist’s belief and is probably more persuasive to most people, so I think you made the right choice.

“What if doing so preserves or promotes some greater (in quality or quantity) value elsewhere?”

Ryan, do you have an example in mind? I’m thinking it would lead to problems, but it might be easier to explain why using something concrete.

Example: killing one person to save many (multiple lives outweigh a single life) or even killing an animal to feed a human (human life outweighs non-human life).

Of course, we would expect an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent being to be able to resolve such problems without really harming anyone or to prevent such problems from coming up in the first place, so the point may be moot. But if we go along with “God works in mysterious ways,” we have to admit that we do not necessarily know the reasoning behind and full consequences of God’s actions.

I’m not nearly as smart and well read as most of you, but I am an atheist and so interested your insightful comments. I was struck by the comment “I know of almost no one willing to give up god’s goodness.” It’s always perplexed me how people will jockey god’s influence during a natural disaster. They thank god for those who survive, yet no mention of god regarding those who died horrible deaths. They just seem to disconnect when the outcome is bad. God is nowhere to be condemned, only thanked. Sheesh.

Ryan,

I think we can say from the theist’s perspective that animals don’t have intrinsic value. As for a consequentialist view where we add values, I have two thoughts. First, I might object to that even being possible for God. It would require God doing something admittedly wrong. Even if it brings about something good, I think the definitions of god might not allow for that. But there’s a second stronger objection. Let’s say we grant that this is possible. We can see that it is not the case in the actual world. God does not in fact kill one when it would save many. Since it does not happen in every case (in any know case really) that cannot be a sufficient reason. The only place to go then is skeptical theism which you mentioned where we just don’t know all these things about God’s plan. Again, we could grant it’s possible but no theist acts like that in reality. It would commit them to a double standard.

Rill,

Thanks for reading and welcome. Please don’t feel inferior in any way. We all have so much to learn.

If theists don’t believe that animals have some sort of intrinsic value, then why do many of them think that it is wrong to harm them except for the sake of acquiring food?

“The only place to go then is skeptical theism which you mentioned where we just don’t know all these things about God’s plan. Again, we could grant it’s possible but no theist acts like that in reality. It would commit them to a double standard.”

No theists act like that in reality? They have faith that God always does good, so they believe that any seemingly bad action is actually part of a good, larger purpose. It goes along with the “God acts in mysterious ways” refrain. One double standard here is that such theists have to think of God as a utilitarian, yet always seem to oppose utilitarianism in practice in the real world. Is that what you mean?

I don’t think there is much consistency across theism regarding animals. Some, like William Lane Craig, will argue that we have at least some limited duties toward animals as stewards of God’s creation. He also says, however, that pain to an animal is not of the same type as for humans (see a few of his most recent Question of the Week responses). However, he believes morality comes from commans from God anyway, not from pain so it doesn’t even really matter. Theists who do not eat animals or who don’t like factory farming, etc. are probably working from a secular ethical standpoint, even if they don’t do so deliberately.

They do act like that where evil is concerned, but it’s a bit ad hoc. For example, think of all the areas in which they do think we can know God’s plans,etc. They think they know them quite specifically when it comes to forming doctrines. It’s only against a challenge that they invoke this. One of my favorite blogs covered that here: http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2010/09/end-of-skeptical-theism-index.html.

The author of that blog explains topics from a variety of professional papers and books. He links to explanations by Maitzen and Wielenberg that I think are particularly strong.

I said “by” but it should have said “of articles by” in the last para.

,—
| If he or she says they will not have value, then it was never truly intrinsic.
`—

Is this a problem? You stated in Problem 1 that most theists only believe in the relational type of value, not the intrinsic. So why wouldn’t they take the above horn of the dilemma and never make it to Problem 2? As a former theist, I can’t see anything wrong with accepting that I would have no value if it weren’t for god. Theists believe god exists, hence they think they have value.

The theists I’ve talked to since then tend to think that hypotheticals like “If god didn’t exist, would you have value?” are silly because they think that if god didn’t exist, nothing would exist.

Thoughts on that line of thinking?

The problem as I see it is that theists claim to believe in intrinsic value, but if you press them on it, they would see it isn’t intrinsic at all. Take the following quote from Christian blogger Luke Nix: “Only theism offers a solid foundation for establishing what is truly “good” and “evil”. Christian theism, specifically, holds that all people are created in the Image of God, thus possess intrinsic value.”

I can’t make any sense of calling that intrinsic value. I think it faces the problem I’ve described. I’m fine with stopping at problem 1, as long as everyone involved is admitting that they don’t really mean intrinsic.

I think the second line of thinking isn’t effective because God could stop valuing you but still exist. It’s really the valuing by God that I’m after so it doesn’t have to be based on existence/non-existence.

Your premise that God murders people is wrong, and, actually, I will prove to you something that may sound strange and counter-intuitive, but it is Biblical. God’s love for human individuals and the fact of intrinsic value of the person is the core reason why people go to Hell forever.

Because God loves you, God will not annihilate you, and because God loves you, and because God honors you, He will send you to the eternal Hellfire forever, if you reject the Lord Jesus Christ His Eternal only begotten Son.

God is not going to just throw you aside or put you out of existence. God values your individual choice, God values you intrinsically as a person, because you are His creation.

The fire in Hell is actually merciful. Hell the Lake of Fire is the eternal quarantine place for you who reject Jesus and die in that lost state. If there was no Hellfire to keep you sinners isolated and apart from each other, in Hell, you would attack each other and eternally vex each other. Because God loves you, He will give you over to your eternal choice. However, because Hell is the absence of all that is good because all good things come from God, Hell will be wordlessly horrific.

Atheism cannot explain intrinsic value, nor can pantheism. Only Theism can explain this. All you atheists are left with is utilitarianism, the idea that things and persons only have value for what they are useful or nonuseful for.

1 If you are very old and disabled and in a nursing home would you rather want to be taken care of someone who believes in God and believes in your intrinsic value, or, would you rather be in the care of someone who has an atheistic view and looks at you only for what you are worth to them and how you make them feel?

2 If you are walking down a dark street and you see a group of large young males, would you rather them be a group of men coming home from a Bible study where they are told and believe they are to be loving and compassionate and treat you with respect, or, would you rather them be a gang of men who think there is no God and we are all animals and they can do what they want to you, even attack you and steal from you, because, after all, that is what survival of the fittest is all about?

God is love and His love includes His holiness and jealousy, Divine righteous care.

Scalar,

A few quick thoughts:

You didn’t interact with the points I made in this post.

Murder and annihilation are different concepts, so your point does not seem to apply. Murder is a concept related to mortal life.

You must use terms like love and honor in completely different ways than the rest of us.

Finally, you are engaging in a straw man argument. You clearly don’t know many atheists and you do not understand their positions. This is the kind of foolishness that leads to the ongoing bigotry in this country.

Now, I recognize that you must think you’ve got us silly old atheists pegged. I mean the Bible says we’re fools, right? Yet, your defense of this is nothing but one big confused fallacy. I would encourage you to look further into this matter and actually talk to some atheists. Read what philosophers are saying. Learn about the history of your Bible. Then let’s see where you stand.

Thanks for the comment.

First of all, I have great love for atheists. I do not hate any of you. I do feel sorry for you because you refuse to acknowledge the Lord God and the Bible does say that the fool has said in His heart, there is no God, Psalms 53:1. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

The thing is this: I have studied the Bible, and I have studied atheism and the various religions; For a time, infact, I considered myself leaning towards atheism, but, God showed me I was wrong, and atheism is false.

Bible prophecy shows me that there is no way that the Bible could have been made up by humans; in order for these things to have come to pass, there had to be a Divine hand behind it. The mathematical probabilities against even a handful of these prophecies coming to pass, IF they were NOT from God, IF they were only the result of “superstitious primitives” like so many atheists seem to think, are astronomical as to make it something that no professional poker player would ever bet on.

The Bible was written by several different authors, from several different backgrounds, in several different land areas, over many different centuries, and yet it all lines up and has no TRUE contradictions. Now, there are things that may APPEAR to be contradictory in that Book, but, when examined in their correct contextual background and understanding, they all line up perfectly.

Furthermore, the fact about morality still remains: Intrinsic Value is rooted in the existence of God. If there is no God, then all we have are opinions. But, we know this is not true.

Also: Mathematical facts are objective universals that are immaterial and yet exist independent of human beings, they are “discovered”, like the laws of nature and morality.

Regarding murder: How do you even define what murder is if there is no ultimate transcendent standard of morality? Lions and Bears kill other animals, is that murder? I would say no. Humans killing other humans with evil intent is murder. We just KNOW, based on the God given conscience, and, God revealed standard, that some things are inherently good and others are inherently evil, wrong.

I know the arguments from probability you reference. They are absurd and require you to beg the question among other problems of reasoning. I know you won’t acknowledge this because you have an illusion built up around this, but it’s true. Don’t believe me? Present it to a professional mathematician who has never seen it before and ask his or her opinion.

Also, murder does not require good/evil to define it.

This is to deep to attempt to understand with an essay due in three hours. I only came here because the essay is on Nihilism, which seems related to your writings, although the word is never actually used.

Daniel,

I would say I am a nihilist, strictly speaking, since I do not believe in intrinsic value. However, I do still wonder whether there can be values that are still somewhat objective without being intrinsic. I’m not completely decided on if that makes sense and how one would accomplish it.

One of the worst argument I have ever heard. I suppose you can always come up with any type of counter argument and so it goes on and on. You live with a self contradictory world view. Atheism profess the belief that there is no meaning in the world, yet you take the time to write this post and expect it to carry meaning.

You Atheists just dont get it, do you? Either there is a God and there is a UNIVERSAL CODE OF RIGHT AND WRONG or there is not. Either there is God and the Standard or there is not and all is morally relative. You cannot have it both ways. Charles Darwin and his cousin Francis Galton and his other followers were social Darwinists and Eugenicists and believed in exterminating the weak, unfit, disabled, and needy. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood taught and lived this and Adolf Hitler and the Nazis called themselves Darwinists and said that was their core justification for their mass murders. The first people they murdered were the disabled and invalids.

IF there is no God and if Atheistic Evolution is true, the burden of proof is on you to explain this: Why take care of and help the needy and poor? Why spend valuable resources of food, clothes, shelter, energy, heat, light, medicine, etc on people who are developmentally disabled and invalid and poor and weak? The ONLY reason is if there is a God who told us to and who watches us and records and rewards people for this and who is the Source of love and care. CONSISTENT Darwinists admit this. That is why the consistent followers of Darwin advocated the extermination of the disabled and weak. They said that to have poor houses and expend resources to take care of the needy and weak is a waste and is preventing nature from taking its course. You cannot have it both ways. Either a cold hard compassionless society with Darwinism or a compassionate loving care based society with faith in God.

And if you try to say “What about the evils men did in the name of God” I will answer before you get there: Those men were going against God and His commandments.

Andre, you appear to be committing the fallacy of equivocation. You suggest atheism entails there is no meaning in the world. The only way I can make sense of that statement is if you are using “meaning” as in some higher purpose or intrinsic value. I would agree, although, some atheists might dispute it. But then you say I write this post as if I expect it to carry some “meaning” which in this case means soemthing like communicating some idea from one person to another. It is not at all self contradictory of me to think there is no higher purpose to life, but still engage in activities that carry some subjective purpose to me or to try and communicate some particular meaning to others. Perhaps you should work on your own understanding of arguments prior to calling someone else’s argument bad.

Bowie, your comment doesn’t interact with the point of the article at all. I’m not proposing an atheistic system of intrinisic value because I don’t believe there is any such thing. I am suggesting that even under theism, it’s hard to make sense of intrinsic value. Theism really just provides a subjective value that you pretend is objective.

Mike, thank you for your reply. If meaning is subjective then if I decided that your reply was about apples, you could not argue with me. Off course meaning is objective universally, whether you are communicating an idea or making a truth claim. Like truth cannot be subjective, meaning cannot be subjective, because then all reason falls apart and we cannot even have this conversation. However the fact that we can means that meaning is objective and that is only possible if an absolute (i.e. God). exists. Your statement that meaning is subjective falls flat, because it either includes or exlcudes itslelf, either way it is a contradiction.

Intrinsic value comes from identity. For a theist, it is the identity that we are made in the image of God. There is something wrong with me destroying a Picasso, but there are Picasso’s that Picasso himself destroyed and that’s ok because he was the creator of those paintings.

Andre, your point was already answered by my previous comment. You are equivocating with the term “meaning” in order to make your point. That is a fallacy. When I used meaning in my comment, I was referring to the sense of the word that means a higher purpose, like helping children really gives my life meaning. You are using meaning in the sense of underlying semantic content, like tree means that object that grows in the ground with branches and leaves.

If you think I’m saying that semantic content is subjective, I’m not. Let me be very clear. The semantic content a person intends is as definite as whatever idea they have when they say it. Even if it is lost in translation, it is still not subjective. If I would agree to any meaning being objective, I would intend to say that finding “purpose” as people like to call it casually is something done subjectively or within the context of some group of individuals and not something imposed externally by a god.

Sam, you have offered a definition of intrinsic value (one that’s disputed among theists, by the way), but you didn’t answer the problem of the article. In your case, Problem 2 would apply. If you are truly intrinsically valuable, then it is wrong for God to send you to Hell or murder humans, etc. If it is not wrong for God to do those things, then you are back to Problem 1 where despite your claim of intrinsic value, you are really only valued insofar as God values you (which is not truly intrinsic).

When I said, “If I would agree to any meaning being objective” I really meant subjective. I thought I should clarify since my comments are not being interpreted very well by the theists in this thread.

Hi Mike,

I did answer problem 2. No matter the value of the painting the creator still has the right to destroy it. It doesn’t take away the inherent value of the painting in any way.