Highlight: The Failure of Atheist Morality

Mr. Anderson, I don't think you answered the question, so I'll ask it again. Please do. He says there's no ultimate foundation for ethics, given your worldview, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans either.

You say that it needs to be meaningful to us, it's at least meaningful to us.

Was it meaningful to the Green River killer, Gary Ridgway? Was his determination of what was meaningful for him just as valuable or meaningful as your perspective that he was wrong?

Meaningful is different than defensible. I work with murderers and pedophiles.

That's incoherent. Meaningful is different than defensible. He's saying that, no,

I think that it's indefensible what they've done, but in order for it to be indefensible, there has to be some standard that you can measure indefensible.

If you say there's no meaning, then there's also no way to say something is indefensible.

If something is defendable, then there's a standard of meaning that we're all wrapping our hands around to say, no, this is what's meaningful, so what you're doing is indefensible.

What he's saying, it's just incoherent. It's because he doesn't have a worldview that can comport with what he's doing, how he lives his life, and how he thinks others should live their lives as well.

So this is just the wheels falling off. This is just somebody hanging themselves. And I mean that with all due respect to the man, but we have to expose the foolishness of unbelief, take down every argument that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and that's what we're doing.

That's an incoherent thing to say. All the time, I have a least favorite pedophile.

Are they wrong? He's very annoying. Yes. They're absolutely wrong. Or they are technically intersubjectively wrong.

So they're not absolutely wrong? No. Because it's all a conversation. So the debate's over, friends.

They are intersubjectively wrong. So you admit, Mr. Anderson, that they are not absolutely wrong, the

Green River Killer is not absolutely wrong, Ted Bundy is not absolutely wrong, child rapists are not absolutely wrong, and you came to debate that your worldview provides a foundation for ethics?

Yes. The humanist perspective does provide a foundation for ethics, because again, rape is wrong, murder is wrong, according to the cultural conversation that we are all of which a part.

So if a society draws a circle around themselves and says that you can kill and cannibalize other human beings, as long as they're a large enough society that draws a circle around themselves and they determine that it's right, it's right to eat other humans?

Some cultures have believed that, yes, and they are part of the conversation. They're part of it.

It's fascinating to watch them try to hold these things together. Some people believe that and they are part of the conversation.

There you go. That's unbelief right there, right before your eyes and ears.

That's what you have. But there's a collision just a few moments before in that he says that these things are unacceptable morally.

Indefensible. Yeah, indefensible. Because the cultural conversation has decided that they're indefensible.

But like you said, what happens when you have a group of people that accept that kind of behavior?

Currently. It's happening today. Which it is. Yes, it's currently transpiring. And now the objection's gone.

Exactly. You have no objection with the tribes today that still practice killing and cannibalizing other human beings.

Some people do that. Some people still do that. Some people, you know, they'll wait till somebody dies to do it.

But I'm not even talking about them. I'm talking about the tribes that actually punish people by killing and eating them.

And according to Mr. Anderson's perspective, they're part of the conversation. And, you know, some people do that.

And, you know, it could be right in that perspective. As long as you get enough people to agree with you. And as long as the conversation tends toward that direction.

And there's ultimately enough people that are on that side of the conversation. Then it's okay to kill and cannibalize other human beings.

I was just going to say, saying they're part of the conversation is a non -answer. That's his escape whenever you press him on something.

You know, is there something objective then? It's almost like, okay, well, let's talk about it.

I'll entertain the notion that it's okay to do this. As long as you feel included.

Yeah, that's academy speak. That's what that is. I don't have an answer, but let's make it sound sophisticated and erudite.

And that's what it is. Given what you've just said, why ought we to love our neighbors rather than eat them?

Because that is what they prefer. And that is part of the cultural conversation. And yes, all of these groups should be part of the conversation.

And I think we should be horrified by what Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot have done.

But you've already admitted, Mr. Anderson, that there's no absolute above Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot. Let me finish the question.

Why should we be horrified when there is no absolute standard to hold them to? You've already agreed that if they decide as a culture and community that what they did was right, morally right, then they're right in your system.

And there's no complaint. Because the victims would not agree. And the victims also have a say. The victims, you believe, are descendants of bacteria.

Yep. So the debate was over. That was the first,

I don't know, maybe four or five minutes of cross -examination out of 20. And the debate's over.

He admits that there's no ultimate, no absolute coherent appeal to ethics from his perspective and in his system.

He admits that human beings are the descendants of bacteria. And so there's no meaning, there's no purpose, there's no ultimate ethics, there's no absolute ethics.

And yet he's coming to a public debate to argue that that perspective gives you a grounding for ethics.

The debate was over. Their perspective is essentially Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism, a version of it.

And so utilitarianism says you should work for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. Jared expanded that in the debate to say you need to work for the greatest well -being and greatest pleasure in the most people.

But he seems to not understand the deficiency in his perspective that he's just claiming that but hasn't justified it.

And it goes to the question of preference as well. So you could say, here it is, ready? Human beings like well -being.

Okay? Grant that as a fact. Okay, grant as a fact. It's not disputed. Human beings like well -being.

Next fact. Human beings like pleasure. They like happiness. Okay? So grant it as a fact.

Here's another fact. Grant this as a fact. What is the case is that human beings prefer not to be victimized.

They prefer not to be hurt. So grant those as three facts that we can all agree with on common ground that it is the case that human beings like all these things.

Okay. From a philosophical perspective, just because something is the case doesn't mean that it ought to be the case.

So you can say, as Jared does here to try to help himself, that the victims prefer that you don't do that.

Okay? That doesn't prove anything. You haven't justified anything ethically by saying it is the case that human beings prefer not to get hurt.

Okay? That means nothing. Because this is a question about warrant and justification for ethics. It is the case they don't like to get hurt.

That's fine. It doesn't mean that it ought to be the case that I don't hurt them. Right? Do you get the point?

You can't get an ought like that from that kind of is. It is the case that they like these things.

That's great. Granted as a fact. It doesn't mean that you get an ought from it. We're talking about oughts here.

Then it has to bring in questions of something that is transcendent, as you just said, something that is ultimate, beyond them, above them, cosmic justice, the character of God, the justice of God, the judgment of God, all those sorts of things.

Because you can't just say human beings like well -being and so we should work for their well -being. Because guess what? There's a lot of people today in prisons that we put behind cages that didn't believe that.

And they still don't. And we keep them there, at least from the world's perspective, to not release them around other people so they continue perpetrating their desire to harm other human beings.

I mean, like it or not, it's a fallen world. There are lots of people that actually get a lot of pleasure out of harming other human beings.

They love it. They like it. And according to Jared, they're part of the conversation.