John Loftus - Rejecting Christianity

"The Christian faith should be rejected by modern civilized scientifically literate people."

I'm not too familiar with John Loftus' writings. However, the above claim is one he advances at his blog, and I must disagree on several grounds.

If he wants to debate me on the matter, I don't think it would be a waste of time - although there may be more important matters for people to spend time debating.

How I interpret the statement

Loftus seems to be saying that all shades of Christian faith (where it differs from other beliefs) should be rejected. This is the problem. The Christian faith is very broad.

Some branches are quite modern.

Some branches are quite civilized.

Some branches are quite scientifically literate.

Loftus would make a better argument if he argued for rejecting the elements of the Christian faith that are different. He could argue for rejecting the aspects of Christianity that are ancient, uncivilized and incompatible with science.

The nature of "should"

My key disagreement with Loftus' statement regards his choice of the word "should." Since he has this phrase highlighted in red text in a permanent "challenge" section on his blog, I assume he did a lot of thinking when he chose his words. As I see it, there are two possible meanings.

First, there is a *practical* use of the word. If you want to win a game of chess, you *should* try to put your opponent's king in checkmate.

Second, there is a *moral* use of the word. If people want to be modern, civilized and scientifically literate (all "good" things), they should reject the Christian faith.

In a practical sense, Loftus would have to (and would inevitably fail, I believe) to establish that those aspiring to be modern, civilized and scientifically literate - in order to do so - must reject the Christian faith. This is evidently incorrect.

It should be noted - there are elements, some specific to the Christian faith, that should definitely be rejected by modern, civilized, scientifically literate people. Just not all.

We are left with the moral element. Loftus may be claiming that modern, civilized, scientifically literate people have a moral obligation to abandon Christianity. For simple reasons, I disagree. If people are modern, civilized and scientifically literate - and Christian - what moral reason is there for such people to reject their Christian faith? It clearly is not obstructing them. Such a claim would also imply that adherence to the Christian faith (and thus, all Christians) are either incapable of being modern, civilized and scientifically literate, or are severely lacking in those areas. This amounts to bigotry and is not to be tolerated.

Conclusion

Doubtless, Loftus wrote his challenge to instigate discussion with Christians. His view is probably shared by many people who have not considered the actual implications of that sort of claim. My post is simply to express my disagreement with his argument, pending clarification.

Addressing some questions from last summer

It's time to clarify a few things. Last August, Rhology and Calvin had a few questions in response to my post "why be nice?"

Re: Rhology,

Rhology asked this: What reasons do we have to encourage a desire utilitarian outlook on morality?

My answer was "none." He asked why I even wrote the post, then. The thing is, someone does not need to believe desire utilitarianism describes morality, or have anything resembling a "desire utilitarian outlook" on things to be a good person (in desire utilitarian terms). Presumably most Christians look at things the same way - as long as you value brotherly love, kindness, charity etc, you're being a pretty decent person. Having different reasons for action don't give the actions themselves a different merit.

Rhology then wanted to know why we *should* encourage others to have desires that fulfill other desires. The answer is simple. We all have real-world reasons to do so. If I'm surrounded by people who have desire-fulfilling desires (these would include compassion, respect for human rights, love, some degree of patience etc), I am certainly living in an environment that is beneficial for me. I have many, many real-world reasons to bring about this sort of environment. It is better for me and for my family.

Rhology then had a big series of questions: "How do you define "bad" desires? How do you define the wellbeing of others? What does condemnation mean and what are the consequences? What *should* the consequences be? Why should they be so?"

These were in response to my discussion of an evil person (acting on a set of bad desires) who exhibits a strong disregard for the wellbeing of others.

Bad desires are those that tend to thwart the desires of others. Desires, like other objective entities, can be evaluated on their tendency to fulfill other desires. When we see which desires tend to fulfill or thwart the desires of others, we begin to learn which desires are good for people generally. Wellbeing is part of a continuum of fulfilled vs thwarted desires. Someone with a marked disrespect for the wellbeing of others would not hesitate to harm them (act in ways that thwart others' desires).

Condemnation involves verbal or physical action toward others. Were we alive at the time, we could express our condemnation of Hitler's actions by our public outcry and by international action - whether restricting trade or whatever - in order to adjust his desires. Condemnation and praise are tools we can use to discourage or encourage desires.


Re: Calvin,

Calvin asked, "So you’re basically agreeing that DU doesn’t account for no-strings-attached altruism? That’s what I want to know most of all: does DU hold that somebody is objectively right or wrong to do or not do any given action, irrespective of the material effects to him personally?"

I'm not quite sure what the first question is asking. Desire utilitarianism does hold that somebody is objectively right or wrong to do or not do any given action, irrespective of the material effects to him or her personally.

HOWEVER - desire utilitarianism does not hold that certain actions are always right/wrong. Right action is that which a person with good desires would do in that situation. In extreme circumstances, this could include killing, lying, etc. The objective part is desires. Desires are universally good or bad; what action an agent takes is good or bad by merit of which desire/s drove the action.

Calvin said, "the question remains: 'Fine, then I’m evil. If it works for me, why not be evil?' (keep in mind my example accounts for his being able to avoid great hardships and his being comfortable w/ lesser inconvenience)."

We run into this problem all the time. Unfortunately, everybody knows what happens when you try to reason a person out of this stance. Whether you're saying "God doesn't like what you're doing" or "you're causing real harm to others," you begin to realize that rationalizing won't give somebody a reason not to be evil. However, social condemnation (see above) DOES give an evil person reasons to stop being evil. Threatening Hitler with armed resistance if he takes action can beging to curb his evil actions.

Calvin: "No, DU certainly does not stand in stark opposition to moral relativism. I’ve yet to see a single reason why, in a secular existence, DU shouldn’t be regarded as simply one of several competing views."

Moral relativism, typically, is the view that "it's good if it's good for me." Desire utilitarianism strongly differs from this, because the theory claims that good and evil exist independent of individual preference. People who accept DU do not need to get others to adopt that understanding, of course - they simply have the same reasons for action to encourage good desires and discourage evil desires that everybody else has. Often, people who think "it's good if it's good for me" can justify operating on desires that are bad for others. Where this happens, those who accept the premises of desire utilitarianism - along with everybody else - have reasons to condemn those actions.

As any scientifically structured theory, desire utilitarianism should be regarded as one of several competing views! However, that does not rob it of its truth value.


Calvin: "Absent an absolute moral authority independent of fallible humans, the only meaning “wrong” can have (pertaining to conduct) would be “in opposition to X,” and “falling short of X’s standards,” which are only persuasive to those who have already accepted X."

I disagree. Wrong behavior is that which a bad person would do - a bad person being someone who operates on bad desires.

Calvin: "You still have the fact that certain conduct will always be counterproductive or dangerous to one’s own desires, and the ability to persuade as many people as possible of that fact. If that’s enough for you, go for it. I hope it bears fruit. But just be aware that one’s senses of self-interest (persuading them to practice “benign manipulation,” if you will) is not the same as morality."

People can easily confuse "desires" with "self-interest." This is not necessarily the case. I may have a desire to sacrifice all of my personal belongings and wealth for the benefit of others. In that case, my desires have little to do with self-interest. Sometimes our "interest" is in the wellbeing of our family and friends.

Regardless, there are bad desires (disregard for human rights, desires to take what belongs to others by force, desires to harm others generally) that we all have reasons to discourage in society. This is true whether you want to call it morality or not. However, as most competent English speakers consider morality to be a code of right and wrong behavior, desire utilitarianism is what you come to if you're looking for such a code based on objective reasons for action.

Premises of Desire Utilitarianism

...and some conclusions.

Intro

This is a long-needed post. This is a list of propositions. These are all descriptive "is" statements describing an objective reality. Desire utilitarianism basically proposes that from these "is" statements, we as humans can reach prescriptive conclusions about what humans "ought" to do.

As I haven't spent much time thinking or planning this post, I will leave it open to my future edits, which I'll point out to readers.

Desire utilitarianism is a theory of ethics in a godless universe.

1. Desires are the only reasons for action in humans.
A desire describes a mental state as regards a state of affairs. The classic example is a desire that "I am eating chocolate cake" means that to the agent, the state of affairs where "I am eating chocolate cake" is to be made or kept true. Similarly, a desire that "I am not on fire" means that the state of affairs where "I am on fire" is to be made or kept false.

Desires are real-world, objective entities existing in the firings of neurons in the brain.

2. BDI theory is true regarding human motivation.
Beliefs + Desires = Intentional action. A belief, as used here, is an attitude about a proposition. An agent who believes that water will quench his thirst has the attitude that water will quench his thirst.

This theory of intentional action says an agent will always act motivated by its desires, given its beliefs. An agent that desires that "I am thirsty" is false, acts on the desire as its belief dictates. If the agent believes the glass of water on the counter will quench its thirst, it will drink (intentional action) the water. Unless, of course, there are other desires...

3. An agent will always act so as to fulfill the more and the stronger of its desires.
Where a state of affairs that an agent desires to be true is made or kept true, that desire is fulfilled. Where that state of affairs is made or kept false, that desire is thwarted.

Often an agent will have a false belief. In the case of drinking the water, if the substance in the glass is, in fact, poison, the agent's desire will be thwarted by drinking.

4. Values lie in desires.
Agents place value on states of affairs. No other value exists.

5. Desires can be evaluated.
Objects can be evaluated on the criteria of their tendency to fulfill or to thwart relevant desires. An example is a knife - a good knife fulfills an agents' desire to cut something. The value of "good" is applied on the basis of its tendency to fulfill desires.

Desires being objective entities, they can also be evaluated. Desires can be evaluated on their tendency to fulfill or to thwart other desires. A good example is the desire to seek truth. For an agent that possesses this desire, it has a tendency to fulfill other desires.

6. Desires can be evaluated on their tendency to fulfill or to thwart the desires of other humans.
If I have, for example, a desire to obtain my neighbors' property by whatever means necessary, this desire has a tendency to thwart the desires of my neighbors.

We can call such a desire "bad," just like we can call a desire to support and help my neighbors "good." The desires are good/bad insofar as they have a tendency to fulfill or to thwart the desires of others.

When a desire is thwarted, it is called - to a greater or lesser degree - "harm."

7. When we ask the question "Which desires are good for humans generally?" we arrive at objective conclusions.
Desire utilitarianism does not claim to provide a list of the good desires humans can have. However, it can demonstrably be shown that such desires as honesty, kindness and compassion for others are desires that are good for my neighbors - for all people.

Desire utilitarianism promotes a scientific approach to studying ethics, a strong criticism of beliefs, and the admittance that at least some of its claims could be proven false.

8. There are real-world reasons for action to promote good desires and condemn bad or evil desires.
Given my desires and values, I have many good reasons to want a neighbor who respects my life, my liberty, my property. Similarly, my neighbors have many good reasons for me to have the same respect.

The more we work to create a society full of people who value the life, liberty and property of others, the more we create a society that is safe for our children, friends and family.

8.5 There is a difference between "I desire that the desires of others be fulfilled" and "I desire to fulfill the desires of others.
It is a simple mistake to think that desire utilitarianism demands that we try to fulfill the desires of other people to be good. This is not true. I can easily desire that shopping be done without desiring that I do the shopping.

9. Desires are malleable.
An agent will always act to fulfill the more and the stronger of its desires, given its beliefs (3). Human agents have the means of adjusting those desires. If, for example, I have a neighbor who wants to take my property regardless of how he accomplishes the goal - I can band together with my other neighbors and impose social sanctions on the fellow. If we sever trade with him, punish him fiscally, or temporarily imprison him, he will now have more desires to take into account. For example, his desire for personal freedom may now outweigh his desire to take his neighbors' property.

Criticism/social condemnation is another way to change desires in others.

Children have more malleable desires, so it's important that they be brought up in such a way that they have good desires - preferably that these desires are for end-goals rather than means to ends. For example, I want my neighbor to respect others' property out of a like for respecting others' property... not just as a way to stay out of jail.

10. Agents cannot be reasoned out of desires.
Jedi mind tricks aren't real. We can use reason to say "these aren't the droids you're looking for," but not to say "you don't want to find those droids you're looking for," for you Star Wars buffs.

That's why desires must be, in a sense, outweighed by other desires if we're to change what an agent desires.

11. There do exist cases of negligence.
Occasionally we may run into a case where someone should have been aware of a danger, or have taken more caution into account before acting. We can conclude, in many cases, that a person who doesn't take the time of day to secure a load on his pickup truck, for example, doesn't care enough about those he might endanger.

This sort of person deserves criticism because it is better for all of us if we live in a society full of people who take a great deal of caution where their actions could harm others.

12. A person with good desires and true beliefs performs good actions.
Given that value exists in desire fulfillment (4), the action that a good person (a person with good desires) performs is a good desire in that situation.

This is where desire utilitarianism becomes a situational, rather than a universal, theory. Honesty is a virtue (a good desire), but in a situation where you are sheltering a Jewish family from the Nazis and they ask if you're harboring fugitives, a good person would lie to protect the family.

Other moral questions become meaningless. The classic trolley car example helps demonstrate this. You are on a runaway trolley car and ahead of you the rail splits in two directions. If you maintain your course, you will kill a child on the track. If you switch tracks, you will run over 10 people. When asked what a good person would do in this situation, it becomes obvious that the "dilemma" is meaningless. A good person could choose either action. Neither effects how that person will be as my neighbor.

A note on meta-ethics

Morality is, necessarily, prescriptive. It describes what we should do - what we have reasons for action to do. Much religious morality involves reasons for action that do not exist. If we relate a moral "ought" to real-world reasons for action, we arrive (I am convinced) at desire utilitarianism.

Our reasons for action involve promoting or inhibiting (or permitting) desires - rather than actions - because it is demonstrably the case that desires cause actions and focusing attention on desires is more effective.

A common criticism is that desire utilitarianism is not about ethics. People say that ethics is about doing "God's will," for instance.

However, desire utilitarianism is about prescriptions for action (good and bad), in the hopes of realizing a better world. In this case, a "better world" for all of us is inhabited by people with good desires. Someone arguing against this is challenging many "is" statements listed above.

Please also note that there is no "is/ought" gap here. It is the case that we have these desires. It is the case that we have these reasons for action. What we ought to do is a part of what is true of our reality.

After all of that...

I hold these beliefs as my theory on value and the nature of good and evil. It is very legitimate to challenge the theory of desire utilitarianism (and for more check out www.atheistethicist.blogspot.com and read what Alonzo Fyfe blogs about).

It is also legitimate to challenge how my statements and arguments about morality are (or aren't) related to desire utilitarianism. Whatever you do, however, do not equate desire utilitarianism with atheism. Atheism is a belief about the existence of God, making no moral claims.

**Note: "Doesn't make moral claims" does NOT = "Is immoral," as some have surmised. The pen on my desk, for instance, is not moral. Nor is it immoral.

Some numbers regarding international aid

Rod over at Makarios really lost all shreds of my respect. Of course, most rationally minded people would probably call me silly for getting so upset at somebody clearly so stone-dumb closed-minded, but a recent post declared that international aid comes from traditionally Christian countries because "Christians on the other hand act out of compassion... We help because we recognise in others a specialness, a treasure, a gift to the world that should not be discarded or ignored."

My response follows:


This is just over the top, Rod.

Now look - I doubt anything will cure your bigotry. You clearly want to hate a group of people, and no rationalizing or presentation of statistics will alter that desire.

However, I should point out the following:

In 2006, the top 20 countries donating to international aid - by percentage of income - were these:

1. Sweden
2. Luxembourg
3. Norway
4. The Netherlands
5. Denmark
6. Ireland
7. England
8. Belgium
9. Austria
10. France
11. Switzerland
12. Finland
13. Germany
14. Spain
15. Canada
16. Australia
17. New Zealand
18. Japan
19. Portugal
20. Italy

I found this list at www.care2.com, but you can also check OECD, www.poverty.com [http://www.poverty.com/
internationalaid.html] where you'll find out that Sweden donates 103 cents/ every $100 earned, Canada donates 30 cents/ every $100 earned and the United States donates 17 cents/ every $100 earned.

This is in response to a United Nations call for governments to donate 0.7% of their income to international aid. The countries that have met that schedule are Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark. The US and Canada are nowhere near the mark.

Neither is Japan (a predominantly atheistic country), but consider this UNICEF article:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry
/index_24817.html

"The government of Japan has allocated seventy million dollars to UNICEF to assist in the tsunami relief effort."

NEVERMIND that you're wrong in your premises. The United States is not a historically Christian nation (except that the majority of inhabitants have been Christian). I don't know about Canada, but either way they haven't contributed much to international aid.

AND helping strangers or even potential enemies seems to make worlds of sense to many people in traditionally non-theistic countries.

And when it comes to treasure... from UNICEF's mission statement:

"UNICEF was created with this purpose in mind – to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path. We believe that we can, together, advance the cause of humanity.

We advocate for measures to give children the best start in life, because proper care at the youngest age forms the strongest foundation for a person’s future.

We act so that all children are immunized against common childhood diseases, and are well nourished, because it is wrong for a child to suffer or die from a preventable illness."

From www.secularhumanism.org:

"As secular humanists we believe in the central importance of the value of human happiness here and now. We are opposed to absolutist morality, yet we maintain that objective standards emerge, and ethical values and principles may be discovered, in the course of ethical deliberation. Secular humanist ethics maintains that it is possible for human beings to lead meaningful and wholesome lives for themselves and in service to their fellow human beings without the need of religious commandments or the benefit of clergy."

Of course you'll rationalize your way out of this, Rod! I'm not expecting to change your mind. You're filled with bigotry against people who haven't come to the conclusions you've come to because hey - you've considered the other options and they're all wrong!

It may be an empty phrase, but maybe you'll catch my general sentiment toward you at this point: Go to hell, Rod.

Sapient on locking Christians away

"What do you think..."

Rhology asked for my take on a Brian Sapient statement. I don't know the original context, but here is the question as Rhology put it in a comment.

What do you think of the Rational Response Squad's Brian Sapient's statement that Christians are mentally ill and should be locked up in mental institutions?

This is a question that requires a multi-part response.

Christians and mental illness:

While there is a clear social factor involved, it has not to my knowledge been demonstrated that Christian beliefs amount to an "impairment of an individual's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning"

It may be the case that some Christians have a sort of mental illness. However, Sapient's statement seems to be far too sweeping to have any weight to it, particularly since many Christians are as different from one another as night from day.

This part of the question, then, is a matter of fact. Is it in fact the case that those following the Christian faith (in all of its many forms) are mentally impaired from normal functioning?

No. Human beings do not by default behave rationally, nor to they typically have rational reasons for adopting any given belief.

Should they be incarcerated:

I'll start by stating that we as humans should be given the strong presumption of freedom. It is when human action causes or threatens immanent harm on others that we consider punishment or "locking away."

So the real question is whether we have reasons to keep Christians separated from the rest of society.

Harm:

The answer depends on how "harm" is understood. In a desire utilitarian sense - as expressed in the first post on this blog - "harm" occurs when real-world human desires are thwarted. Because desires are the only reasons for action that exist, humans have reasons to promote good desires in others... good desires being those that tend to fulfill the desires of others.

One example of a good desire is "that the desires of others be fulfilled." *Not necessarily that "I fulfill the desires of others,"* so recognize the difference.

Are Christians more evil?:

We have no good reasons to believe that Christians (especially "all Christians") cause harm to other people, any more than any other group. Not all Christians cause a "mental illness" in others. There is no case that can be fairly made to say that Christians deserve to be jailed any more than any other group, and to make that claim amounts to bigotry.

The strong presumption of liberty we follow (since the removal of liberty is among the most desire-thwarting actions possible) stands until Sapient or others can provide reasons to believe Christians (especially "all Christians") cause or threaten more harm than other groups.

CNN Messes Up

I think it was intentional
I found a link to a CNN article called Religious Scholars Mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

While I read through the article with some interest, and intend to watch the Nova program it provided a link to, I was a little disturbed by the last paragraph.

He recognized the point when his neighbor, a militant atheist who sports a pro-Darwin bumper sticker on her car, tried recently to start her car on a dying battery.

Militant
Alright, CNN's editors, if not the writer, should have caught this. Look up "militant" in a dictionary. The word refers to people who are "vigorously active and aggressive; engaged in warfare; fighting."

Sporting a pro-Darwin bumper sticker does not make someone militant.

Ultimate words
Militant is a "devil word" in our culture. If you haven't read my previous posts about rhetoric, a devil word is a type of "ultimate word," according to rhetorical theorist Richard Weaver. Ultimate words hold a specific meaning in the mind of the audience.

"God words" are words like liberty, justice, bravery etc., while devil words involve ideas like terrorism, threat, violent, cowardly etc. When readers perceive the word "militant" in a description of an atheist, their first subconscious idea is one of fear and threat with regards to the subject.

This is not a simple type error - this is an unethical choice of words.

Look What Reared Its Ugly Head

Just a cursory glance at Makarios' blog site shows that, despite the break he swore to take after a bit of a thrashing he took over the summer, he has been running wild with some irresponsible, bigoted and downright strange claims. I plan to post a few responses to some of the smellier posts on his own site, but this one needs a little special attention.

Richard Dawkins = the next Joseph Stalin

"A quote from a speech by Joseph Stalin when he came to power is 'Religion must be out of Russia within five years.' Gee, where have I heard a sentiment like that before? Oh ya. It’s from the latest atheist saviour Richard Dawkins. Substitute 'North America' for Russia and that is exactly the dream of hate-monger Richard Dawkins and his band of rage-filled, intolerant followers."

"Ultimate Words"

One of my early posts on this blog concerns the use of "ultimate" words in rhetoric. "God" words invoke a good reaction, while "Devil" words invoke a reaction of fear and hate in the audience. Makarios' post contains these terms in describing a group:

Hate-monger, rage-filled, intolerant, mass murder, totalitarian, eliminate, oppression and persecution.

Makarios described "the atheist dream of the mass murder of Christians."

It's disgustingly bigoted, evil rhetoric.

The art of persuasion

I really enjoy the study of rhetoric, and there is such a thing as good and evil rhetoric. This is, quite simply, the evangelistic method used by a self-described (if mockingly) "fundamentalist asshole."

On other blogs, people have wondered if Makarios is just an internet troll trying to get attention. Regardless - others should see that his sort of hateful and unfair speech is not to be tolerated.

If he is right - if Richard Dawkins is assembling an army of atheists to rid the country of the religious - then he and his followers will be deserving of even stronger criticism. However, in the lack of evidence for such claims, Makarios is very much in the wrong for inciting hostilities toward atheists as a whole. Not only do his claims regard non-existent threats; he is criticizing an entire group for what one person (or subset of a group) allegedly said.

Bad form.

Why Be Nice?

Rhology and Calvin have unwittingly prompted me to write a little bit on this topic. Why should a person be good and why, in particular, should one be 'good' in a desire utilitarian sense?

Rhology listed a few reasons here as to why he acts nice, beside the threat of Hell:
1) I love Jesus b/c He saved me.
2) Jesus lived a morally pure life and commanded me to do the same for a variety of reasons.
3) So I try to.
That's the distillation. Others:
4) Living like Jesus is what God created me to do. I don't want to live against my operational specifications. Don't want to use a hard drive as a baseball bat.
5) It makes the Good News of Jesus that I tell to others more credible.

Rhology wants to act like a Christian (according to Rhology's understanding of how a Christian should act). Others can make a nearly identical list of reasons and use them to explain a set of behavior starkly in contrast with Rhology's own.

Anyway...

Reasons for Action
First of all, it doesn't really make sense to ask whether or not we should encourage people to see morality through the lens of desire utilitarianism. What makes sense, according to Alonzo Fyfe, is to ask whether reasons for action exist for promoting certain desires, and whether they are more and stronger than the reasons against promoting those desires.

But why prescribe the actions and desires that desire utilitarianism suggests we prescribe? Mr. Fyfe has explained that desire utilitarianism is a description of how prescription works.

"As such, desire utilitarianism is to be adopted or rejected on the same types of criteria that any other descriptive theory is to be accepted or rejected. Are the claims that desire utilitarianism make about prescription true or false?

For example:

All prescriptions are recommendations to bring about or avoid a particular state of affairs.

A prescription brings to bear the ‘reasons for action that exist’ that recommend bringing about or avoiding a state of affairs.

Desires are the only reasons for action that exist."

Another proposition I'd like to add is this:
An agent will act to fulfill the more and stronger of its desires, given its beliefs.

That being the case, all we can do to prescribe a particular action is try to convince the person that acting in a particular way will, in fact, fulfill his or her desires. We cannot argue someone out of their desires. Nothing I can say will convince a person who enjoys lying not to enjoy lying. This should be pretty apparent.

What we can do, however, is several things.

Adjusting Malleable Desires
First, we can apply social rewards and sanctions/praise and condemnation to make it the case that certain desires are given precedence. For instance, if somebody desires to be dishonest and manipulative, if we apply enough condemnation and sanction, at some point it will benefit the liar to behave honestly, and he will thus desire to do so.

Perhaps more importantly, though, we can apply these tools to our children from a young age. We can raise them with an aversion to dishonesty. Then, when they approach a circumstance in which it may be personally beneficial to behave dishonestly, their aversion to dishonesty may make it the case that they desire to be honest anyway.

Do reasons for action exist to promote honesty and to cultivate an aversion to dishonesty in others, and do those reasons for action outweigh those that recommend promoting dishonesty and discouraging honesty? Yes they exist, and they certainly outweigh the opposing reasons.

"If it is true that desires are the only reasons for action that exist, then the desires that we have the most reason to promote are those that best fulfill the more and stronger of our desires.

Some desires (the aversion to lying) tend to fulfill other desires, while some desires (the desire to rape young children) tend to thwart other desires."

Ultimately
What reasons do we have to encourage a desire utilitarian outlook on morality? Well, none; it's not an important question.

What reasons do we have to encourage or discourage different desires based on their general tendencies to fulfill or to thwart other desires?

All the reasons in the world. The only reasons for action are desires. Promoting desire-fulfilling desires in others is something which every single person has all the reason in the world to do.

Now, at this point everybody has a particular set of desires. Some are good and some are bad - this goes for me and everybody else. It's next to impossible to adjust those desires now - neither we nor anybody else can reason us out of our desires. However, they can be outweighed by other reasons for action. This is what we provide when we condemn bad actions and praise good behavior.

Q&A
Calvin posted some thoughts here which I'd like to try to (briefly) address. Of course, he wrote a lot, so I'll probably have to follow up on this.

"I can’t find any reason why I should board in the first place."
_I hope I at least began to address this. Nobody can change your desires - only give you other reasons for action that outweigh them.

"I don’t see why I should value the fulfillment of another’s desires"
_No specific desires are intrinsically 'supposed' to be fulfilled. That's not the point. The point is that acting on good desires - not those that fulfill specific desires, but those that tend to fulfill the desires of others - is what we should encourage.

"But is reaping pragmatic future rewards the extent of society's interest in morality? Or is there another component?"
_I'm not sure what the other component would be. All people act so as to fulfill the more and the stronger of their desires - it is in our interest to encourage others to act on particular desires (those that tend to fulfill the desires of others). Pragmatic future rewards are a particular type of 'reasons for action' that exist for us. There's no way to cause people to act in opposition to their desires. We can simply shape those desires.

"Let's say you have someone who just doesn't care about the fulfillment of others' desires... What does morality say to/about such a man?"
_He's evil. He acts on a set of bad desires, and exhibits disregard for the wellbeing of others. He's worthy of condemnation.

"I need to know whether or not human desires matter, and why they matter, to decide whether or not I have any obligations towards them."
_They matter because they're all that matters. All that is important or means anything to mankind is tied up in desires. To respect, empathize, or mean well toward another human being, you must acknowledge and, in most cases, respect his/her desires.

"That truth, that underlying meaning I’m searching for can either be the soul, or it can be firing neurons."
_How to put this... If there is a soul which provides empathy and other good feelings, then we can assume it also provides the more negative entities of hate, bigotry, callousness.

You can argue that those exhibiting the latter set of traits are simply not in their original state. However, it could just as easily be the case that the former set of traits (such things as empathy) are the real aberrations, and the intrinsic state of the soul is hateful and bigoted.

In fact, we find that people's tendencies toward empathy or callousness are profoundly influenced by upbringing. We're born essentially tabula rasa.

"It’s preposterous to think I should care in the slightest about firing neurons that don’t affect me."
_For one thing, you don't have to. Desire utilitarianism never says that you *should* care about others. It simply says that some desires are to be encouraged and others discouraged; this for objective reasons we all have. One of these good desires, it can be argued, is the aversion to thwarting the desires of others (firing neurons) unless there is good reason to do so.

For another, you're using loaded language here. It may be the case that 'firing neurons' is the extent of what our thoughts and feelings are. Calling it a 'soul' does nothing to increase the worth of that phenomenon; calling it firing neurons does nothing to increase that worth.

"DU may not be moral relativism, but it offers no challenge to it."
_On the contrary, it stands in stark opposition to moral relativism.

"If your pure reasoning, truly free of ideology & emotion (and free of the poisonous influence of fanatics like Hitchens & Harris), honestly leads you away from God, so be it."
_Thank you for being so respectful. I have yet to read anything by Dawkins, Hitchens or Harris, so I can't comment on the poisonousness of their influence. Yes, my reasoning leads me to the conclusion that, while I cannot disprove the existence of God, and no evidence points toward or against such a being, it is rather unlikely that it exists.

Yet the conclusion a particular line of reasoning takes me to is that there is, in fact, reason for morality in a godless world.

A Little Further Reading:
Alonzo Fyfe has some essays which may help address the topic:
Why Worry About Morality?
So, you want to be a desire utilitarian
Promoting Desire Utilitarianism
Evaluating Moral Theories
The 1000 Sadists Problem

Proving God

If there's anything more impossible than living around the turn of the millennium and not having heard of Morgan Freeman, it's proving the existence of God.

Which God?

Atheism can have a few meanings, but in general that meaning depends on to what it's referring. "A" means "without," and "theos" is, of course, "God." Theos is seen so differently around the world, though. Sometimes god is known by a different name, and other times by different characteristics. Many Christians feel that their God is different from Allah because of certain traits - a triune nature, omni-benevolence, the trait of 'heavenly Father-ness.' So when asked if they believe in a god of Allah's characteristics, the proper response is to say 'No, there is no such god. The universe is without (A) such a being (theos).'

Nearly every Christian in America, likewise, does not believe that the God of the Westboro Baptist Church exists. Such a God exhibits the characteristic of hating people - most people, in fact. When asked about their belief in such a god's existence, most Christians' proper response is 'No, there is no such god. I am an atheist in that regard.'

More commonly, atheists describe themselves as people who simply do not believe in any gods because no compelling evidence can be provided in support of such a claim. This is probably best described as a materialist or secularist outlook. The premise that 'all is matter' is sufficient until proof is provided by those on whom the burden rests - those claiming that a 'super-natural' aspect to the universe is real. Along with the burden of proof, such people also strive against the principle of Occam's Razor, which suggests that when given two alternative explanations to a phenomenon or phenomena, the simpler is to be preferred. Clearly, when a natural explanation for the universe is plausible and well-evidenced, it makes no sense to propose the infinitely complicating factor of the supernatural.

All of this to lead to the idea that proving 'God' is very difficult. Einstein's idea of God was something akin to the mystery of the unknown in the universe. Hell, I believe in that God. Disproving that concept of God is impossible. Yet the more specific we get in terms of describing the traits/characteristics of this divine entity, the more realistic it becomes to disprove it.

I believe the universe is just matter. I see no reason to infer the supernatural - except to explain things which we don't have answers for yet. However, an argument from ignorance has never been my idea of a strong stance. When it comes to the Christian God of the Bible, though, I believe such a being can be disproven because of its characteristics: all-powerful, all-knowing; all-good.

www.proofthatgodexists.org

I was directed to this website a few months ago, and I quickly came to the conclusion that it was ridiculous. I had forgotten about it until I had the good fortune of coming across an excellent blog called The Set of All Things Not Identical to Themselves.

I found a blog entry describing the author's experience at the website, and his critique of it. The author of the site then responded. Now I feel compelled to offer my own criticism of the website, as I feel it is misleading.

False Dilemmas

A false dilemma usually takes the form of an 'either-or' statement. "Either you believe in God, or all morality is subjective opinion." Well, that's not true. The typical way of dealing with this sort of argument is to 'go between the horns' and point out counterexamples where it doesn't have to be one or the other.*

Of course, in the case of contradictions, a dilemma is valid. You can't go between the horns of 'Either I am holding a pen or I am not holding a pen.' Logically, either one or the other must be true. It becomes a fallacy when there is an excluded middle... 'Either there are elephants on Mars, or it is raining in Seattle today' happens to be my current favorite example.

Back to the Website

When you enter the site, your first choice is to select whether you believe in absolute truth, don't believe it, don't know, or don't care. The author is not careful at first to point out what he means, but he seems to mean 'X is either true or false for all people at all times,' and that X is the sort of statement that exists in the real world. So far, so good. "It is cold out" is not an absolute sort of truth, but "I am cold" is. So I click that I agree.

"The Bible teaches that the existence of God is so obvious that we are without excuse for denying it."

Alright, let's see just how easy this is.

1. Laws of Logic Exist: True. Regardless of what we call them, our system of describing why 2+2=4 refers to actual phenomena.

2. Laws of Mathematics Exist: True... if redundant.

3. Laws of Science Exist: True. Here, however, it becomes important to consider what 'exist' means. Many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore exists about unicorns. From that, we cannot infer that unicorns exist. A law of science does not mandate how the universe operates. A law of science is a human idea that makes predictions and seeks to explain what we can observe about the universe. A law's existence does not necessitate the existence of its subject. For instance, I can reference a law that peasants are to be afforded no mercy when they steal from the royalty - but that doesn't mean that peasants and royalty exist (at this time). It is a valid point, however, to say that the phenomena described by laws of logic, mathematics and science exist, though. In this case, I will go for it.
PS, remember that this same consideration should be taken into account in the previous questions - what people have codified is irrelevant; its congruence with reality is what matters.

4. Absolute Moral Laws Exist: This question has issues on so many levels.

First, there is some equivocation on the word 'law.' Equivocation means the word or phrase can mean two different things as it is used in the argument.** A law of science is an invariable and universal fact about the physical universe. If matter behaves in a way that contradicts such a law, it disproves the law. Likewise, if numbers behave in a way that contradicts or violates mathematical or logical law, then we are wrong about the laws.

Are moral laws the same? Would the author state that a set of principles of right behavior exist in the universe, and all interactions of matter must conform to those laws - and that if matter violates those laws, we must reject and/or rewrite the laws? Well, no. There is no universally agreed-upon set of laws for right and wrong behavior (although we see globally, cross-culturally exhibited aversions to some types of behavior in, perhaps, a majority of cultures).

So the author is using the word 'law' differently in this question. In fact, he seems to be using it more in the sense of government. A law, in this sense, governs how an individual or group is to behave in a community, and is established by some authority. Presumably, given the premise of the website, the author is referring to a law established by the authority of God to rule over the community of humankind.

Second, we're back to the idea of 'existence.' Can we observe this sort of moral law? That is, a code of right and wrong established in communities by forms of authority? Sure! But they're not absolute. The 'moral foundation' of the law for adults not to sexually trifle with 14 year olds in our nation is not something people in other places and cultures are expected to abide by.

On the surface, such a question doesn't usually demand much thought. That's why the questions about laws of logic, math and science were asked first - the reader becomes settled in the rut of thinking that somehow a moral law is the same as these other, more obvious, laws.

So what if you select the right answer? What if you click 'No?'

You're presented with a dilemma:
"Either molesting children for fun is absolutely morally wrong, or it could be right."

The problem here is introducing a motive. Motive plays a huge role in discerning moral culpability. If there's a difference between killing and murder, it lies in the motive of the person taking the life of the other. Essentially what this site is doing, though, is presenting you with a false dilemma. "Either molesting children for fun is potentially good behavior, or there's an absolute moral law." That is not a necessary conclusion to come to. It could be the case that molesting children for fun is terrible behavior to all people, at all times, AND that there is no absolute moral law. In fact, that is the conclusion that I hold at this website (if you read my second post, you may understand why).

So imagine I pose this question to the author:

"Either killing is ALWAYS a morally disgusting thing to do, or NO absolute moral laws exist."

I imagine he'd protest. He'd say, "No, sometimes killing is necessary - even God does it. That doesn't mean that no absolute moral laws exist."

Exactly. Motive is necessary to determine whether an action is right or wrong behavior. Had the question excluded the phrase 'for fun,' the answer would obviously be yes: it could be right to molest a child. If an alien race invades and says 'either you molest this child, or we molest everybody,' then the right thing to do is undoubtedly to molest the child. At the same time, the desire to molest children for fun is evil. These concepts are not contradictory, and thus, though cleverly concealed, the question poses a false dilemma.

Finally, this part of the website is very obviously, and self-admittedly, an appeal to emotion. While an important aspect of persuasion in many cases, and not necessarily a logical fallacy, there are still responsible and irresponsible ways to appeal to emotion.

"I feel that the best test to determine whether or not you really believe that absolute moral laws exist, is not whether you feel that atrocities like rape and child molestation could be right somewhere in the universe, but whether they could ever be right if perpetrated against you or someone you love."

I find this sort of thinking strange coming from someone who feels that morality is not dependent on individual feeling - yet he feels inclined to appeal to individual feeling to make his point. If what he is arguing is true, then an appeal to emotion and subjective feeling would be pointless - unless he were to make a further argument, such as that these absolute laws are ingrained in members of the human community just as societal laws become ingrained in members of a society. Yet, we find that this phenomena is not the case. It's a prediction of the Bible that all people have 'the law' written on their hearts, but this prediction is not substantiated in tests. Testing seems to confirm, as a matter of fact, that value judgments and emotional responses to situations depends largely on factors in people's upbringing.

I'm tempted at this point to simply exit the site. However, I will tell an untruth just to keep moving.

5. Laws of Logic, Mathematics, Science and Absolute Morality are Immaterial: True. In the sense that the website author presents the case, something material is able to be touched, seen, smelled, heard and/or tasted. I should add that most of the spectrum of light does not fall into this category. Atoms, likewise, are not seen so much as the effects they make are observed. Gravity, likewise, is 'immaterial.'

Apparently, it is a futile attempt to "find an abstract entity in nature." Since I can't find the physical number 3, it is immaterial. Ok, I can agree to this (but I thought I should elaborate before continuing).

6. Laws of Logic, Mathematics, Science and Absolute Morality are Universal: True. As far as we know (and this seems to be a safe belief), our understanding of logic, mathematics, and science are universal. Likewise, standards of right and wrong behavior that are universal can be argued (as I maintain in this blog).

7. Laws of Logic, Mathematics, Science and Absolute Morality are Unchanging: True. Our understanding of them (the actual laws, which are a codification) changes, but the phenomena we seek to describe using them does not.

Ooh, the quick jab from the right, the hard hit from the left!

"Universal, immaterial, unchanging laws cannot be accounted for if the universe was random or only material in nature."

This is downright wrong. For one thing, nobody claims that the universe is random. For another thing, nobody claims that the universe is material in the way the author used the term material. This is yet another instance of equivocation. As the website puts it, material = corporeal. However, materialists don't (obviously) disbelieve in things like light, atoms and gravity just because they do not take a physical form. Of course, I'm probably straying far too close to the realm of quantum reality than I'm qualified to tread here, but these very real aspects of reality in no way rule out the claim that all that exists is the natural.

"Only in a universe governed by God can universal, immaterial, unchanging laws exist."

Big question coming up: Why? Nah, let's be like the website author - let's leave that unexplained. We'll just state it and then not support it.

8. The Proof that God Exists: Without Him, you couldn't prove anything.

Yep, it's just stated like that. The bulk of the questions simply reaffirm that there is a uniformity to the universe. Great. What I'd be interested in hearing is how exactly this isn't circular reasoning.

Begging the question, for those unfamiliar with the concept, involves assuming your premise to prove your conclusion. In this case, check it out:

1. If there's no God, nothing can be proved.
2. We just proved something
3. Therefore, God exists.

Funny thing... mustn't the conclusion necessarily be true in order for (2) to be true? The answer is yes. If we assume premise 1, then we cannot state premise 2 until we've established conclusion 3. We're free to believe premise 2 is false until we're convinced of conclusion 3, so we can't use premise 2 to argue that conclusion, because the logic is circular and begs the question in point.

Ultimately

The sort of thinking behind this website is saddening. If the author makes an appearance here to respond, that would certainly be interesting, as I'd like to understand just how far he grasps the 'laws of logic' he referred to, ever so ironically, early in the website experience.

I found that the author has a blog website. I think I'll write him and leave this blog with the prominent quote on proofthatgodexists.org: "Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Let's see how the truth of this statement bears out.

*http://www.fallacyfiles.org/eitheror.html
**http://www.fallacyfiles.org/equivoqu.html

A Delicate Issue

Criticizing the Religious
We live in a time in which people very similar to me criticize organized religion for the evils it causes. I ran into an article that challenged that claim. The rejoinder it provides, though, is not to dispel the claim, but to instead point the finger at secularist regimes.

I've been known to say that some secularist ideologies provide excuses to justify murder, while religion provides actual motivation. For instance, this essay pointed out that

"The fact is that more than 100 million human beings were killed by secularist regimes and ideologies in the last century."

This is accurate. At the same time, does such a secularist ideologist say 'Oh my goodness, there is no God! That makes me want to kill innocents!' Not exactly. Does a religious fanatic say 'Oh my goodness, I get dozens of virgins of my own if I destroy evil westerners! That makes me want to kill evil westerners!' Actually, yes.

However, it is not the religion or even the fact that this person is religious that deserves condemnation. The individual who wants to kill others in the name of his religion is simply operating on evil desires. He was not raised responsibly - he was told that killing others for the greater good of God was a good thing to do. When a religion teaches such things, we can criticize such a teaching, and the religion for teaching such a thing.

Bigotry is morally impermissible. Classifying all religious people in one bunch and calling them nutcases is inadvisable and, more importantly, false. Blaming them for all atrocities in the past (the strawman that the essayist raised in his introduction) is very inaccurate as well.

Just One More Motivating Factor
There are enough motivating factors for evil. Religious and secular people alike experience drives for power, money, fame... these things are not just excuses that 'allow' people to justify their evil actions - these are reasons for action. Religious beliefs can provide similar reasons for action.

Remember, though, that desires are what drive people to action. Beliefs shape what people do to accomplish those desires.

My parents are both religious people, but their convictions do not cause them to do evil. In fact, they're both basically saints. The reason for that is that their desires drive them to do good things: to provide for their children, to help others, to promote cooperation in the community, to responsibly educate, to exhibit honesty and integrity. Their beliefs influence how they go about this. My mom told me the other day that she originally wanted to enter the ministry because she 'wanted to help people.' She didn't - she's an educator - but this goes to show that she was raised with the desire to help people, and the belief that religion was necessary to fulfill that desire.

That right there is another reason to criticize religious teaching - the indoctrination that only religion provides a path to helping others and/or behaving ethically. Some teachings are good, admittedly - the poor and the helpless are to be helped, peace is an ideal, self-control and honesty... so criticize the teaching, rather than the religion or the religious.

Ultimately
To the author of the essay: The title of your essay was 'Religion is not to Blame,' yet you did nothing to demonstrate this. You simply pointed a finger and said 'Well, secularist ideologies killed more people!' If this was your point, then yes, religion is still to blame. Just because something else killed more does not make the other more blameworthy. Cancer and AIDS have killed more; does that excuse the actions of religious and secular persecutors?

Value-Laden Terms in Everyday Language

I don't usually listen to Nickelback where I can avoid it, but the lyrics of the song "Animals" caught my attention. The song is about sneaking out with a sexy girl and gettin' down without the parents being any the wiser. Chorus goes

No, we're never gonna quit
Ain't nothing wrong with it
Just acting like we're animals

Nobody reads this blog yet, but for those who might, you'll have noticed that I'm very concerned with how language is used. Consider the use of "it's just______." We hear that sort of phrase all of the time.

Concerning abortion, we hear "It's just a bunch of cells."
I hear Christians say "well, if evolution is true, then your mind is just a bunch of neurons firing."
In this song, the phrase is "Ain't nuthin' wrong with it, we're just a couple animals."

Value
These phrases are all the sort that describes a phenomenon with the intention of devaluing it. I don't care if the result of sperm+egg is 'just a bunch of cells.' Every living thing is 'just a bunch of cells.' However, the way our minds work, using this sort of phrase devalues the object of the conversation in the mind of the listener.

So what if the mind is 'just a bunch of neurons firing?' It's a fact, whether or not you believe in God, and that fact in no way diminishes the trustworthiness of our minds. When put in those terms, though, the speaker is trying to devalue the object.

Similarly, in the Nickelback song, the singer is trying to justify his actions by saying 'we're just a couple animals.' That's fine - in fact, it's completely true. We're all animals, though, and that fact has no bearing on right and wrong. However, the assumption in many human minds is that animals are of a lesser moral quality than humans, so if we're animals, then any action that an animal would perform is permissible. However, that is not the case. While it's true that many animals are much more civil towards members of their own species than humans are to our own, some animals eat their mates after copulating. Hopefully this is not a permissible thing for human beings to do.

It's false to say 'X is just ____, according to you, therefore your perspective is false.' That's obvious. Using that sort of unspoken line of reasoning, though, has a strong impact on the average listener, who may be of the sort of mindset where if a statement is unappealing, it is disregarded. It's best saved for another post, but people have to deal with reality - it is possible, if not common, for people to think 'I want there to be an afterlife. I didn't get a fair life, so there must be one,' and they'll believe it as if their belief makes any difference to reality. I may revisit this thought later.

A Further Example
One other example bears mentioning. On a Facebook discussion board this morning, I responded to an interesting claim. A young man made the perfectly valid claim that scientific claims can't exactly be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. He then provided Webster's definition of faith (firm belief in something for which there is no proof). Since there is no proof for scientific claims, he said "There is evidence for evolution. There is no proof however. Thus, evolution (among some other things), like religion, must be taken on faith."

This is a pretty simple syllogism:
1. There is no proof for scientific theories
2. A belief without proof is faith.
3. Therefore, science, like religion, is based on faith.

Unfortunately, there is a little bit of a problem here. He presented 'proof' as certainty beyond a shadow of doubt. He pointed out that experiments exist that could disprove the Second Law of Thermodynamics, for instance. What he may not have realized is that experiments exist that could disprove nearly everything. For instance, nobody can prove 'beyond a shadow of doubt' that reality has existed for more than 5 minutes. In the sort of capacity he uses 'proof,' every single belief a person has is faith.

But that's not how faith is normally used, and it's not the impression that his words conveyed. Had he used the dictionary to understand the word, he would have found that 'proof' is defined thus: "evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true." For example, in our justice system, people are 'proven' guilty or innocent - beyond a reasonable doubt (scientific conclusions, likewise, are beyond a reasonable doubt).

So, is there a word to distinguish between the 'faith' that plants photosynthesize, and the 'faith' that there is an afterlife? Well, I'd like to think so. In fact, I'll call a propositional attitude regarding a statement a "belief," such an attitude based on solid evidence "sound belief" and such an attitude based on no such evidence (or in spite of evidence to the contrary) faith.

Using the word faith as this fellow did is a bad idea. I'm not sure he recognizes it yet, but when 'faith' is used to describe scientific theories, the automatic assumption is not the correct one - that 'faith' has been expanded to mean every single belief a human being has - the assumption is that scientific theories are not built on solid evidential foundations. This leads to similar devaluation by the average listener.

Many people think of 'rhetoric' to mean 'saying something without saying anything.' That's exactly what this person did - whether or not he recognized that, I'm not sure though, so I won't jump to that conclusion and condemn his actions.

Ultimately
The point to take away from all of this is that often a phenomenon is described in a way that casts it negatively, just to try to devalue a certain perspective. Don't fall for it. Question the motives of the speaker. If he is trying to deceive or confuse, he is worthy of moral condemnation.

PS I should mention that I'll use 'he' in most of my examples. Our language is regrettably lacking in the sort of terminology that would allow me to be gender-neutral in that sort of case (without being ponderous, anyway). I may switch and use 'she' every now and then just to throw the reader off :)

Colorado - Threats, and how to Respond

I found a link in a post on Pharyngula today to an article in the Denver Post. The article described a situation today where

"University of Colorado police are investigating a series of threatening messages and documents e-mailed to and slipped under the door of evolutionary biology labs on the Boulder campus."

A religious-affiliated group (undisclosed by the police) identified itself in the messages. Police Commander Brad Wiesley summarized the notes as basically saying "Anybody who doesn't believe in our religious belief is wrong and should be taken care of."

"What's written on paper is what's written on paper," Wiesley said, voicing a belief I share with and attribute to Alonzo Fyfe that the proper response to words is words; to legislation is legislation; to action is action. In this situation, what has been exchanged is not only words, but threats. The phrase 'taken care of,' in this context, cannot be mistaken for anything but a threat - especially when the content of the messages was apparently strong enough to prompt a police investigation.

A threat is a suggestion of action. I believe a police investigation and, hopefully, punishment, is the proper response to these events.

This sort of action is deserving of a great deal of condemnation from both the religious and the secular community. It is unacceptable to threaten educators for teaching a widely accepted theory that does not cause any harm. It is the University of Colorado staff's right to teach in peace - and, I'd argue, responsibility to teach the theory of evolution.

In true rhetorical fashion, don't expect the organizations that decry, for instance, perceived bias against ID advocates in higher education, or that claim Christianity is persecuted in America, to make any mention of this event. The more responsible Christian groups that hear about this article will take the time to at least wag a finger at the group making the threats. I'll be interested to see what develops.

In other news, the Denver Post entertained me with a story of a 2-acre fire ignited by a flaming bird.

Glenn Miller addresses ultimate motives

A series of links led me to an (dated) article that JP Holding challenged Sam Harris to respond to. Being the relative newcomer to these online joustings that I am, I have no idea whether or not Harris took it upon himself to get back to him (and I don't know enough about Holding to know whether or not he's a worthy adversary). Well, the article deals with a Christian justification of the problem of evil, and I think I'll do my best to respond. The article is by Glenn Miller.

1. Here is how the original question was posed. Miller responded to a reader's subsequent question "Isn't that cruel?":

"At the outset God made this into a life-and-death situation. God staked the entire future of mankind on this one event. We lost. The moment that Adam and Eve ate that fruit, wheels were set in motion that would ultimately result in the doom of mankind. Without some kind of intervention from God we would all be damned. God does promise to intervene, but it's like building a nuclear bomb and setting it to go off in a large city at 12:00. Then, when all of the people of the city come to you for mercy, you disarm it for them. Does that make you a hero for disarming it or a lunatic for building it in the first place? The whole thing was orchestrated to make us feel dependent upon God. That says a lot about God's character."

2. The impossibility of coming up with a decisive answer

Miller correctly notes that "If we are not able to discover a motive for God's decision to [create the universe], then we will not be justified in judging that unknown motive to be either adequately good or to be insufficient."

As an aside, this is a complicating issue that simultaneously makes the 'God' hypothesis an absolutely impossible one to disprove, and renders the hypothesis irrelevant for scientific study as well. Imagine this sort of conversation:

Jack: If the earth is just a few thousand years old, then why does it appear ancient?
Jill: God did it - but we can't know why; His motives are sometimes a mystery.
Jack: But isn't that deceitful?
Jill: Who are we to judge what 'deceitful' is? God's motives are sometimes a mystery, so somehow it's not deceitful.

Hopefully it's quite clear why the problem of evil is so difficult to impress upon the practiced believer. It's of more ease (and perhaps importance) to consider the more readily defined ideas of justice or love... but I'll save that for later.

3. What's the question?

The person who penned the original question meant to argue that the idea of the Christian God does not = the idea of a good god. Since 'Christian God' must, by definition, = 'Good God,' we can see what his argument was: The idea of the Christian God is not good. He was NOT claiming 'God exists' and then saying '...but He is evil!' as Miller interprets the situation. More on this later.

Of course, the original article (which I was unable to find) seems to have made a point of questioning why God placed the magical trees in the garden, why the magical serpent tested Adam & Eve when they had no knowledge of right and wrong, etc, but I won't write about that just yet either.


4. Understanding 'good' and 'evil' in the problem of evil

Language is arbitrary. For those who haven't considered this directly, it should make abundant sense that the word 'cat' only means 'cat' among people who agree on that meaning. So, when we're talking about the problem of evil, we can't make any sense unless we agree on the meaning of 'evil.' Otherwise, you could be talking about 'morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked,' as dictionary.com suggests, while I'm talking about 'a loaf of bread' (unlikely... but you see the point).

Miller addresses that problem early on:

"We must note that, in the first question, we (somewhat insignificant 'carbon-based life forms') are presuming to judge God's morality and character on the basis of our own! For a human being, with the incredible paucity of data we have about the universe, morality, reality, and complexity, to decide that God is less kind, less noble, less compassionate, less moral, less 'humane' than they, seems quite bizarre, in my opinion."

On whose basis, then, are we to judge? Miller should recognize a few things:

First, if we can't criticize God, then we can't know if God is good. Here's how such an attempt would go:

Hansel: God is great, God is good! Let's bring Jesus to the neighborhood!
Gretel: How do you know God only does good things?
Hansel: Because God is good!
Gretel: What is 'good?'
Hansel: Whatever God does, because God only does good!
Gretel: All you're telling me is that God does what God does.

With that sort of approach, the word 'good' is pointless - rather than saying 'God is good,' you may as well say 'God is God' for all the information the statement conveys. It is a tautology. Clearly, we need to have some idea of what 'good' means if we are to make sense of the statement 'God is good.'

Fortunately, the Bible provides some clarity. Traditional Christianity describes God not only as omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent, but a) Loving, b) Just, c) Self-sacrificing, etc. Miller adds "good, merciful, kind, benevolent, and interested in the welfare of all His creatures, great and small." These traits are more easily understood than 'good,' and so easier to test.

Second, he is begging the question. The question is whether or not a good God exists, and in the above passage, Miller assumes that one does. Now remember, since we're talking about the idea of the Christian God, we're assuming a being that is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent.

If our analysis (which, to be meaningful, must proceed from an agreed definition of 'good,' other than 'that which God would do') does not produce a god that is all-good, then we do not have a god that matches the description of the Christian God, and the argument is over.

For Miller to say that we are 'presuming' to judge God's character is to already assume that the idea of God we're questioning exists. The skeptic quoted at the beginning of this post was NOT arguing that a god exists that created morally superior beings than itself. He is arguing that the theology/philosophy behind the idea of God is not compatible with what we can describe as a good God.

Let me state that again: The theology/philosophy behind the idea of God is not compatible with what we can describe as a good God. Remember that we have to understand 'good' and 'evil' outside of 'what God would or would not do' in order to meaningfully describe God as 'good.'

If 'good' is just 'what God would or would not do,' then the skeptic quoted at the beginning of this post was simply arguing 'How could God do that which God could not do?' A Christian can simply respond by saying 'Well, that's impossible... so our understanding of what God could do must be lacking.' However, such a response derives from a misunderstanding of the point of the argument - rather than assuming [A good God exists] -> Let's figure out how to make His actions all be good, the problem of evil assumes nothing, and then -> Let's figure out if a good god exists.

5. Desire Utilitarianism Lite

Desire utilitarianism is a theory that assumes the absence of the supernatural or of any overarching established moral code, which makes it difficult to analyze God... but if we were to take the 'idea' of God and apply desire utilitarianism, it may yield some insights.

Desires are the objects of moral criticism ('good' and 'evil')
Good desires are those that tend to fulfill the desires of others (promoting welfare generally)
Good actions are those which a person with good desires would act upon
Good and evil desires are discovered by a scientific sort of evaluation as to which desires would objectively tend to fulfill those of others - a list of such desires would include empathy, compassion; it would exclude the desire to harm others, to hate; to kill.

6. Determinism - more misunderstanding

Miller spends a good deal of time berating 'the skeptic' for being too deterministic. However, the skeptic was not assuming that everything would be a 'first domino fell over, hitting the next one, and the next one' kind of circumstance. Since he assumed 'omniscience' in the idea of the Christian God he was arguing against, he was merely noting that such a God would know beforehand the events which would transpire on earth. This is not predeterminism, and I believe Miller wasted his words here. The skeptic simply assumed that God didn't bring the universe into existence under the naive belief that everything would work out perfectly. For many theological reasons I could outline, but decline to do so for space-saving purposes, this is a valid assumption to make.

So far...

Miller's response is too long to draw a very thorough breakdown from me. He spent most of the rest of the letter trying to explain why various examples people pose as cruelties imposed by the Almighty are not as bad as one might think. So far, it's done nothing to answer the basic question - nothing at all. Miller has assumed the Bible to be true; then assumed God to be morally good; then taken the appropriate measures to interpret the Bible thus... in so doing, he happened to mention (by way of contrasting the plague on Egypt) various other plagues of the ancient world that accounted for hundreds of thousands of horrible deaths all over the Middle East. All of this, presumably, was foreseen by God. Why go ahead with the plan, then?

7. Postulating a motive

Very simply, if God was ever once the only entity in existence, and God is all-good, clearly it is possible for good to exist without evil. If God is all-powerful, then God does not need love, companionship, help etc. In fact, if God did need love, He could always rely on those other aspects of His tri-unity (Hey Jesus, wanna shoot some pool?).

A) A universe can exist without suffering or evil
B) An all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God can exist alone
C) Therefore, the existence of suffering and evil is not necessary. It was derived from a conscious decision which was not made for the benefit of those created - since those creations would wind up "enduring a life of hardship and pervasive suffering [whereupon] most humans will end up in Hell, where they will be actively tortured forever and ever."

It's a common response for a Christian to postulate that there is some overarching good to explain the evil. I challenge them to postulate ANY single reason God would have for creating the universe.

8. Greater good

There could be some 'greater good' that demands the creation of this universe. For example, there could be another universe in which two people get to go to Heaven for every person in this universe that burns in Hell. This assumes that there is a price/exchange rate for every soul - in fact, what if the majority of humans who go to Hell simply go there so a few can get to Heaven? Maybe we're sacrificed because we're only worth, collectively, as much as the Christians who go to Heaven.

The latter proposition falls apart. First it assumes that some humans are more valuable than others, which the principle of justice precludes - unless there is some aspect of those humans that is intrinsically more valuable. Maybe it's their ability to have blind faith. If so, then the creation of the humans who only believe what evidence supports (or those who put their blind faith in the wrong god!) is a blatant injustice. If God is just, then that scenario is not true.

If God has created other beings of more intrinsic value than humans, then what? I'd argue that God's values would be in direct conflict with our own - and if we're defining 'good' in terms of the general wellfare of human beings, then that argument has run into a roadblock as well.

So is it all, as the Iron Maiden song says, "For the Greater Good of God?"

9. Foreknowledge

Miller brings up the philosophical question of what can be foreknown at all. Just as 'omnipotence' does not mean God can make a burrito so hot He can't eat it, omniscience doesn't necessarily mean that God would know what would befall mankind...

It gets a little complicated here. Supposedly, God doesn't have 'free will' like humans do (in Christian theology), because God is limited to those actions that are good. God's character is described as good, so we know that God can only do things His character allows. His character apparently allowed Him to create humans - with the ability to freely choose evil (what God's character wouldn't allow God to do).

An all-knowing God, even without the gift of foresight, couldn't fail to recognize the inevitability of evil. That can't be good... that God's character would allow Him to create evil is very similar to the idea that if one hires a mercenary to murder somebody else, that person is culpable as much as the mercenary is.

Furthermore, an all-knowing God couldn't give the order to 'go forth and multiply' while assuming that humans with a lifetime of ~1,000 years living a life of 0% infant mortality, no natural disasters, no predation, disease, poison, and a limited ecosystem would be happy for long.

Oh no, it's pretty clear that even without foreknowledge, an all-knowing God would be privy to the understanding of certain inevitabilities.

"What we need to do at this point is to come up with a set of criteria which would warrant the continuance of a plan that included foreknown suffering."

Miller thought up four criteria.

1) There must be more 'good' than 'bad.'
2) The lives of the good and evil intertwine inseperably (what happens to one affects the other)
3) Nobody is discriminated against - we are all treated fairly
4) The evil does not ultimately thwart God's intention to bless the good

He decided to approach each of these criteria independently. I'll summarize and criticize in another massive conglomerate, but it's time for me to hit the hay.

Rhetorical Analysis - Ultimate Words in the Abortion Dispute

When two sides are in direct dispute over a topic, their stance is often labeled appropriately: pro-war vs anti-war; pro-gay marriage vs anti-gay marriage. In only one contemporary debate is there a situation where one issue has two conflicting 'pro' sides. Abortion rights is the battle between 'pro-life' vs 'pro-choice.'

These terms are 'ultimate words,' according to Richard Weaver, one of the preeminent rhetorical ethicists of the century. 'Ultimate words' are used to direct our passions toward favoring one side or another; to shape the way we look at the subject.

Both sides of the abortion debate use loaded language, which doesn't help to move our passions in the way that a responsible rhetorician should.

Value-laden terminology
Weaver's discussion of 'ultimate words' distinguishes between 'god' terms and 'devil' terms. In America, there is a positive association with words like 'progress,' 'democracy,' 'freedom' and 'justice,' and a negative connotation with 'reactionary,' 'fascist' and 'militant.'

More pointedly, there is a positive association with words like 'life' and 'choice,' and a negative with 'killing babies' and 'forced pregnancy/childbirth.'

Weaver had a somewhat traditional view of rhetoric - 'addressing itself to the most important of all ends, the persuading of human beings to adopt right attitudes and act in response to them.' The sort of attitude generated by the particular use of 'ultimate words' by opposing parties in the abortion debate is not very helpful to understanding the arguments in regards to the issue.

Certainly nearly everybody is 'pro-life' in most circumstances. You won't find many people in the general public who are 'against' life... but that is the connotation implied when those opposed to abortion use the term. People are essentially told that 'if you value human life, you must side with us. If you side with them, you don't value human life.'

The other side does the same thing, through its choice of words. Nearly everybody is 'pro-choice' in most regards in this democracy, particularly, ironically enough, the Republicans who usually stand on the other side. Yet when the value-laden terminology of 'pro-choice' is used by the pro-abortion rights side, the public automatically gets the assumption that those who disagree with abortion rights aren't concerned with allowing people to make their own choices with regards to their bodies. Making independent choices is an important American value - a 'god' term in our culture.

Language is sermonic

Weaver is probably most famous for his claim that language is sermonic; that people engaging in rhetoric are preachers.

"Finally, we must never lose sight of the order of values as the ultimate sanction of rhetoric. No one can live a life of direction and purpose without some scheme of values. As rhetoric confronts us with choices involving values, the rhetorician is a preacher to us, noble if he tries to direct our passion to noble ends, and base if he uses our passion to confuse and degrade us."

The use of value-laden language to cast two opposing sides as noble is quite simply the oldest form of argument on earth. In this case, using 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' amounts to a pathetic appeal - an argument from pathos. Pathos is the third of Aristotle's artistic proofs (Ethos: perceived character of the speaker, and Logos: logical syllogism, are the other two).

The passions are being stirred by using value-laden language that suggests 'We support life. They support killing babies.' Or 'We support the right to make our own choices. They think important life decisions should be forced down our throats.' This is not the same as trying to 'direct our passion to noble ends.'

Pathos, Phaedras, and the noble rhetorician
"The office of rhetoric is advising men," wrote Richard Weaver. In his analysis of Plato's Phaedras, he points out that the dialogue between Socrates and Phaedras was written to describe the difference between a noble and a base rhetorician.

"Sophistications of theory cannot obscure the truth that there are but three ways for language to affect us. It can move us toward what is good; it can move us toward what is evil; or, in a hypothetical third place, fail to move us at all."

The analogy Plato made was between a lover and a rhetorician. A lover can treat you in a dispassionate way - as an object or in a carefree manner, in a way that manipulates your emotions and uses you for his/her own benefit, or in a way that focuses on meeting your needs, on self-sacrifice and mutual trust. A speaker, likewise, can be dispassionate and boring, can manipulate your emotions to promote his/her own benefit, or - this is the 'noble lover,' or 'noble rhetorician,' can speak in a way that 'persuades human beings to adopt right attitudes and act in response to them.'

We have an obligation to use language responsibly. 'But any utterance is a major assumption of responsibility,' as Weaver concludes. Using loaded language will always have ramifications. Be careful.

Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe

It's dated, but I was presented with a transcript of a presentation by Dr. Hugh Ross, founder of the Reasons to Believe 'Science-Faith Think Tank.' Delivered on April 16th, 1994, 'New Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God' nevertheless indicates some interesting details about the organization.

I have a few comments.

Ross, despite his education, seems startlingly unable to recognize sound logic.

"Through the principle of positive fact, if the universe has a beginning, it must have a beginner, hence the existence of God."

Now, it may just be that I'm unfamiliar with the term 'principle of positive fact, but what I see is this:

1. All beginnings have a beginner.
2. The universe has a beginning.
3. Therefore, the universe has a beginner.
4. That beginner is God.

The first premise requires a little elaboration, and there is an unjustified leap of logic between (3) and (4). Still, it's clearly just a basic rephrasing of the age-old cosmological argument. Premise (1) only stands if by 'beginner' Ross means 'cause.' For instance, if I say 'since an avalanche has a beginning, it must have a beginner,' I am only correct in the sense that something triggered the avalanche. 'Beginner' implies someone, which is, at best, something Ross overlooked, but more likely just meaning-laden language used rhetorically in an irresponsible fashion.

While there is still debate over the validity of the cosmological argument for a creator (which I won't bother detailing right now, but will direct you to a useful description here), what is certain is that to say that 'the universe has a cause' is NOT the same as saying that 'it has an intelligent, thinking, planning Cause.' All we know is that a series of events caused a beginning to time and space - as we know it, in this universe. The leap from this conclusion to 'thus, God' is unwarranted. It is at least unsatisfactorily explained in the presentation.

"Any entity confined to half of the line of time, must have a beginning and must be created. I can walk home tonight, and that's it. It's the simplest, most rigorous proof of the existence of God."

By way of counter-example, here are a few other options for an entity confined to half of the line of time (only able to move 'forward' in the dimension of time we experience):
1. The entity was, at one point, able to use any line of time, and has since lost those abilities.
2. The entity existed outside of time, and then became subject to that dimension (Jesus Christ, as Ross must have forgotten)
3. The entity was brought into existence by non-intelligently-designing factors.

I'm not pushing any of these as a legitimate argument - that's not the issue at hand. I simply want to demonstrate Ross' failures at grasping logical arguments.

Ross oversteps the boundaries of his education, making him both intellectually arrogant, and negligent

Let me be the first to admit that Ross is a well-credentialed man. His B.Sc. (1967) in Physics, University of British Columbia, Ma.Sc. (1968) in Astronomy, University of Toronto and Ph.D. (1973) in Astronomy, University of Toronto clearly show that he is educated. However, it is these very credentials that point to a more sinister side to his ministry.

"All we have is evidence that a certain species exists for a certain period of time without significant change, which then goes extinct to be replaced at a different time with a radically different species, with no connection from the previous species to the next one."

Ross is in no position to give educated commentary on the theory of evolution. He may be considered a scientist, but his area of expertise is not in a field relevant to allow him to be an authority on fossil record evidence, or biological evolution in general. As an educated scientist, he should know this - and he exhibits intellectual arrogance and a disregard for accurate knowledge in attempting to cast himself as an authority before an audience unqualified to criticize his claims.

Of course, he is flat-out wrong, too , and he derives his statements from a flat-out misunderstanding of biological evolution. So I don't carry on too long, I'll refer readers to check the accuracy of his statements at Talk.Origins, the American Scientific Affiliation, or UC Berkley's Understanding Evolution page.

In reference to hominid fossils:

"...there's no relationship between those bipedal primates and human beings."

Today, we know that 'at this functional genetic level humans and chimpanzees are more similar to each other than either is to any of the other apes.' While this information was not expressly available at the time of Ross' presentation, to say that there is 'no relationship' between one primate genus and another cannot be considered an accurate statement. Of course, those who have studied hominid fossils extensively and submitted their findings to rigorous peer-review believe that there is indeed a strong relationship between these primate fossils and both humans and the common ancestor shared by some modern apes.

Ross has no expertise when it comes to evolutionary theory, and when somebody schooled in science presumes to offer a professional opinion on a different branch of science, that somebody is either being deceitful or... well, that's pretty much the only option. He's too smart to be doing anything other than intentionally misleading his audience.

Ross is willing to use baseless numbers and present them as fact

"There were 30,000 land mammals on planet Earth when God created Adam and Eve. There are only 15,000 remaining today. In just a few thousand years, 15,000 species of mammals have disappeared."

It's important to remember that there is a difference between facts discovered by scientists and scientific theories. Of course, I don't know how he possibly arrived at the 30,000 number. Modern estimates put the number of mammal species at around 5,000. His faulty statistics also say that even without human impact on earth, one (mammal) species would go extinct every year. However, only 82 mammal species have gone extinct, to our knowledge, in the last 500.

I suspect that the 'one per year' number refers to animal species as a whole... showing, again, not only Ross' inability to provide authoritative commentary on the biological sciences, but his negligence for saying what he did.

Ross, and other 'intelligent design' advocates, depend heavily on arguments from complexity

"What does this tell me about the Creator? That God so loved the human race that he went to the expense of building one hundred billion stars... so that for this brief moment in time, we could have a nice place to live."

That's not what it tells me. I understand the the universe is complicated - incredibly so. However, consider for a moment the motives for an all-powerful being to create a universe. From the way Christians present God, It would presumably create a universe for the habitation of human beings, for the sake of making something complex, beautiful, and reflective of Its characteristics, or some combination of the two.

If the point of the universe is to host human life, then it is a monumental waste. From our experience of intelligent designers (humans), a system designed to work should exhibit signs of simplicity - the more simple the design, the less can go wrong. God could have made a tiny 'universe' consisting of only our planet. In fact, there is evidence that the Bible authors held to this view. It would make even more sense, of course, for God to have created a universe for every individual - Christians will remind you that your relationship with God is the only important one, so why shouldn't it be the only one? Besides, that would pretty much eradicate 'sin,' which usually relies on situations with more than one being.

But most Christians propose something a little different, which helps to explain the seeming pointlessness of a vast universe - God wanted to make something complex, beautiful, and reflective of Its characteristics. However, I'm fairly certain that if an all-powerful God wanted to really make a complex universe, for complexity's sake, then It could make one vastly MORE complicated than this. Certainly we wouldn't expect it to be mostly empty space, filled with background radiation and almost completely hostile to life.

Why I consider the argument from complexity pointless

Any given hand in a poker game is vastly improbable - yet once you've been dealt that hand, to question the odds of having been dealt it is unreasonable. More pointedly, consider the odds that you exist, here and now - as an individual. Each sperm has something like a 1 in 20,000,000 chance of fertilizing an egg. Account for other variables - that your parents would decide to do the naughty thing on a particular day, at a particular time, in a particular place; that they'd even find one another; that THEY would be born...

The chances that you would come to exist were very slim. However, now that you are born, the chances have become 100%. The same is true of the universe... just because the numbers thought up by mathematicians make it seem unlikely that the universe came about at all doesn't change the fact that it did - and it wasn't much more unlikely than the fact that you are reading this right now.

The presentation fails to deliver

I was led to believe by its title that this presentation would give scientific evidence for the existence of God. What I got was facts discovered by scientists (not necessarily science), along with bogus/false 'scientific' conclusions (not related to hypothesizing God), and pointless mathematical calculations. This does not amount to scientific evidence for the existence of God in any way, shape, or form.

More specifically, the presentation began with this statement:

"The hallmark of a truly reliable scientific theory is that it is thoroughly testable, scientifically falsifiable, and makes accurate predictions."

NOTHING he presented regarding God was falsifiable in theory, or had the ability to make predictions. This presentation is, at best, misleading - as the audience assumes that the opening statement is true (which it is) and then nods along as facts discovered by scientists (NOT the same as 'scientific theories') are presented. This presentation has more straw men than a cornfield, leading me to the firm conclusion that, given the credentials of the speaker, the presentation is deliberately deceitful.

I have to end with a strong moral slap on the hand for a scientist who should be held in deep disregard by honest people. Nevermind that modern Christianity extols honesty as a virtue. Nevermind that other Christian organizations like Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research are far more culpable.


The question is whether or not the 'Hugh Ross' sort of person is the type we should welcome as part of society. Imagine, if you will, a presidential administration that exerts a great deal of power over the American public. Since it holds that position, it is assumed to know what it's talking about - people trust it initially in its decisions and claims. It then takes that trust and runs with it, making wild assumptions not based on fact, and assuming it knows the truth even when there is no reason for it to do so (like when it invades Iraq and then ignores the results of the Iraq Study Group). It conjures false reasons and presents them as fact. Overall, it fails to live up to what is expected - required, actually - of it. This sort of presidential administration is deserving of all sorts of criticism. It is the sort of administration that should be fought through legislation and proper application of the law.

Dr. Hugh Ross represents a group that exerts a great deal of power over the American public - in the role of Christian leader. People trust him when he makes decisions and claims because he is a scientist. However, he takes his perceived (but undeserved) authority to other subjects and makes wild claims not based on fact, and assumes he knows the truth... although facts indicate otherwise. He claims to present science, but fails to live up to his claim.

He willingly deceives, misleads, assumes his conclusions true even when un-credentialed to make them. He demonstrates a blatant disregard for truth and reasoned criticism. The sort of desires that Ross operates on are the sort that lead to bad decisions and harmful consequences, as we see from the example of the Bush administration. The sort of desires that Ross operates on are demonstrably the type that tend to thwart the desires of others, and should be outspokenly denounced.