This week we answer Christopher Hitchens’ famous moral challenge.  

“The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring both of them by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other.  But the standard that measures two things is something different from either.  You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than others.  Or put it this way.  If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something – some Real Morality – for them to be true about.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952  

“You have to name for me an ethical action or an ethical statement or moral action, moral statement, made or undertaken by a believer that I couldn’t undertake or say, I couldn’t state or do.  I haven’t yet had an example pointed out to me.  In other words that a person of faith would have an advantage by being able to call upon divine sanction.”  Biola University, Does God Exist? William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens, 4/4/2009 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tYm41hb48o

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006 quoting from the website Patheos  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/the-new-ten-commandments/    

“Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you…”

Matt 7, “7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”  The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982  

“It’s only really as good as the person uttering it.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tYm41hb48o

“There has never been a society found where rape, murder and perjury are not condemned.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tYm41hb48o

“Walter Kutschmann

Kutschmann was an SS and Gestapo officer based in the Lviv (Lwów) region of Poland. He played a direct role in the killings of more than 1,500 Polish Jews, intellectuals and civilians…Witness accounts describe Kutschmann publicly shooting an 18-year-old Jewish maid in the head after accusing her of transmitting a venereal disease after allegedly raping her.”  https://www.foxnews.com/world/delayed-justice-argentinas-secret-nazi-files-expose-costly-inaction-pursuit-war-criminals

“For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought it was right, and it would still have been wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them so that it was believed that the Holocaust was right.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

This week we look at how to judge between two sets of competing moral values?  Is there are third thing that helps us reach the right conclusion or is a consensus enough?  Thank goodness God loves us!

Definition – “To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

“Many philosophers have argued that if God does not exist, then morality is ultimately subjective and non-binding.  We might act in precisely the same way that we do in fact act, but in the absence of God such actions would no longer count as good or evil, right or wrong, since in the absence of God, objective moral values and duties do not exist.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

“The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring both of them by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other.  But the standard that measures two things is something different from either.  You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas get nearer to that real Right than others.  Or put it this way.  If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something – some Real Morality – for them to be true about.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952  

“For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought it was right, and it would still have been wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them so that it was believed that the Holocaust was right.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

“What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced?  If they had no notion of what we meant by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the color of their hair.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952  

Genesis 9, “5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.” The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982

Jeremiah 1, “4 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982

Psalm 139, “14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982

“The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.” –G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922

“ 1.    If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2.    Objective moral values and duties do exist.

3.    Therefore, God exists.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

This week we look at a few more examples or morality building by consensus and then look at some historical examples of what has happened when you remove God from the equation.  Don’t ever forget how much God loves you!

“Religion is an insult to human dignity.  With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

“Fortunately, however, morals do not have to be absolute.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

“Not all absolutism is derived from religion.  Nevertheless, it is pretty hard to defend absolute morals on grounds other than religious ones.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

“How, then, do we decide what is right and what is wrong?  No matter how we answer that question, there is a consensus about what we do as a matter of fact consider right and wrong: a consensus that prevails surprisingly widely.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006 quoting from the website Patheos  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/the-new-ten-commandments/    

3.    Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

 Matt 5, “43You have heard it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’  44But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.”  The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982  

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006 quoting from the website Patheos  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/the-new-ten-commandments/    

9. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others. 

·       Joseph Stalin & Other Soviet Communist Leaders – Atheist/Communist – murdered approximately 61 million of their own people. (Rummel, 1997)

·       Mao Zedong – Atheist/Communist – murdered through his policies or directly killed approximately 78 million of his own people. (Rummel, 1997)

·       Various North Korean Dictators – Atheist/Communist – murdered millions of their own people.

·       Khmer Rouge – Atheist/Communist – murdered millions of their own people.

Rummel, R. - Death By Government,  Routledge, 1997

“What matters is not whether Hitler and Stalin were atheists, but whether atheism systematically influences people to do bad things.  There is not the smallest evidence that it does…Individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

“The humanness of an embryo’s cells cannot confer upon it any absolute discontinuous moral status.  It cannot, because of our evolutionary continuity with chimpanzees and, more distantly, with every species on the planet.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

 “In the previous chapter, when trying to explain the shifting moral Zeitgeist, I invoked a widespread consensus of liberal, enlightened, decent people.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

This week we take a deep dive into the Golden Rule.  Can it really work without God?

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006 quoting from the website Patheos  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/the-new-ten-commandments/    

Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you

Matt 7, “7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”  The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982  

Matthew 5: 43-44, “You have heard it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’  But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.”  The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982

Matt 22, “37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”  The Holy Bible, New King James Version, 1982  

This week we look at attempts to build moral values from a consensus.  How do morals from a consensus compare to the teachings of Jesus Christ?

These are a few examples of a naturalistic 10 commandments that Richard Dawkins quoted from an atheist’s website Patheos on The New 10 Commandments.  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/the-new-ten-commandments/   in The God Delusion.  

 “Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.”  Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006 – quoting from the website Patheos

“Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.”  Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006 – quoting from the website Patheos

 Jesus commanded, John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”  NKJV, Thomas Nelson, Inc, 1982

Matthew 5:43-44, “You have heard it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’  But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.”  NKJV, Thomas Nelson, Inc, 1982

“Of course, dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination using methods that took centuries to mature (whether by evolution or design).”  Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

This week we see Christopher Hitchens try to answer the question of where moral values come from in a Darwinian model.  Don’t ever forget, God loves you!!

“There might be someone who says that’s so, but it would not be I think discernible by anyone here that I for example who do believe that we have evolved by random mutation combined with natural selection for success in certain genes, believes that someone who is born blind or deaf should simply be left by the way side.  There is no such corrobory[sic]...”  D'Souza, Dinesh; Hitchens, Christopher, 2008, Does God Exist, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ_WGb8X3L8, Christopher Hitchens vs Dinesh D'Souza | God on Trial Debate

“The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.” – G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America, 1922 

 “With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated…We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man…. hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871

 “Early embryos that have no nervous system most certainly do not suffer.  And if late-aborted embryos with nervous systems suffer – though all suffering is deplorable – it is not because they are human that they suffer.  There is no general reason to suppose that human embryos at any age suffer more than cow or sheep embryos at the same developmental stage…Suffering is hard to measure, and the details might be disputed…The evolutionary point is very simple.  The humanness of an embryo’s cells cannot confer upon it any absolute discontinuous moral status.  It cannot, because of our evolutionary continuity with chimpanzees and, more distantly, with every species on the planet.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

We continue our journey looking at moral values this week and examine whether or not evolution can help explain moral values.  Or, does natural selection and the survival of the fittest lead us to a far darker place?  

“I am suggesting that the same is true of the urge to kindness – to altruism, to generosity, to empathy, to pity.  In ancestral times, we had the opportunity to be altruistic only towards close kin and potentially reciprocators.  Nowadays that restriction is no longer there, but the rule of thumb persists.  Why would it not?  It is just like sexual desire.  We can no more help ourselves feeling pity when we see a weeping unfortunate (who is unrelated and unable to reciprocate) than we can help ourselves feeling lust for a member of the opposite sex (who may be infertile or otherwise unable to reproduce).  Both are misfirings, Darwinian mistakes: blessed, precious mistakes.” Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006

“But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not.  Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger.  You will probably feel two desires – one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation).  But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away.  Now this thing that judges between the two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot be either of them…Another way of seeing that the Moral Law is not simply one of our instincts is this.  If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature’s mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win.  But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses.  You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning; but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same.  And surely it often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is?  I mean, we often feel it our duty to stimulate the herd instinct, by waking up our imaginations and arousing our pity and so on, so as to get up enough steam for doing the right thing.  But clearly we are not acting from instinct when we set about making an instinct stronger than it is.  The thing that says to you, ‘Your herd instinct is asleep.  Wake it up,’ cannot itself be the heard instinct.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952

“The aid we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.” Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871

This week we begin our journey looking into the question of where moral values come from.  In this episode we define our terms and look at the difference between moral values and objective moral values.  What we will find along the way is that the best answer not only points to a creator this time, but the best answer actually points to the God of the Bible who loves you more than you can imagine.

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.  DNA neither knows, nor cares.  DNA just is, and we dance to its music.”  Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, 1994

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.  But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?  A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.  What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?  If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?  A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal; a fish would not feel wet.  Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own.  But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too – for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies.  Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist – in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless – I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality – namely my idea of justice – was full of sense.  Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952

Moral Values – The values I choose to live my life by.  

Definition – “To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

William Lane Craig states the moral argument this way in Reasonable Faith:

“

1.    If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2.    Objective moral values and duties do exist.

3.    Therefore, God exists.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

“Many philosophers have argued that if God does not exist, then morality is ultimately subjective and non-binding.  We might act in precisely the same way that we do in fact act, but in the absence of God such actions would no longer count as good or evil, right or wrong, since in the absence of God, objective moral values and duties do not exist.”  William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1984

This week we conclude part four of our series looking at how the best explanation of our consciousness is an intelligent Creator.

References:

Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004 – Interview with J.P Moreland

Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary, The Immortal Mind, 2025, **Ref1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1YWy5SQPhg

 “Suppose everybody who lacked a certain part of the brain was disabled in a very specific way.  The brain would be like a machine.  Take out a part and it just doesn’t work or work right.  Then the idea that the mind is merely the physical functions of the brain – the materialist view – would be hard to argue with.  But that’s not at all what we see.”  **Ref1

 “Of course, if a brain is seriously damaged, intellect and will can be impaired.  But that is because the brain damage impairs memory or perception areas that are needed for the mind to understand what has happened or is happening.”  **Ref1

 “Here’s the conundrum that these cases pose: On the one hand, a neurosurgeon must be very careful about removing brain tissue that is doing something important.  On the other hand, people with very dramatic natural brain losses or absences can have normally functioning minds.  If the mind were merely the activities of the brain, that would not be happening.”  **Ref1

 “If the mind is completely a product of the material functions of the brain, then:

1. There will be no mental phenomena without brain functions.

2. As brain function is altered, the mind will be altered.

3. If the brain is damaged, then mental function will be damaged.

4. Brain development will correlate with mental development.

5. We will be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity – no matter how we choose to look at it.”  **Ref1

 “As Steve Taylor has pointed out in Psychology Today, “NDE’s have never been satisfactorily explained in neurobiological terms…All of these theories have been found to be problematic.”  One weakness of such explanations is that they try to account specifically for selected aspects of the near-death experiences.  But they fail to account for the complete experience.  The ways they account for the narrow aspect of the NDEs that they focus on invariably conflict with all the other evidence.  That is why no skeptical explanation provides a credible account of NDEs.”  **Ref1

 “That includes a subjective sense of being dead, a feeling of peace, painlessness, pleasantness, and so on, a sense of bodily separation, perhaps a sense of entering a dark region or tunnel, encountering a presence or hearing a voice.  That may include taking stock of one’s life (a life review), seeing a bright and often beautiful light or being enveloped in it, seeing beautiful colors, entering the light, and encountering visible spirits.  Near-death experiencers frequently report mental conversations with a Being in the light or with deceased persons, especially relatives.  Those who report undergoing a life review may also report a sense of forgiveness as well as profound understanding in a world of beauty beyond nature.”  **Ref1

 “As Steve Taylor has pointed out in Psychology Today, “NDE’s have never been satisfactorily explained in neurobiological terms…All of these theories have been found to be problematic.”  One weakness of such explanations is that they try to account specifically for selected aspects of the near-death experiences.  But they fail to account for the complete experience.  The ways they account for the narrow aspect of the NDEs that they focus on invariably conflict with all the other evidence.  That is why no skeptical explanation provides a credible account of NDEs.”  **Ref1

Consciousness Points to a Creator Part 3: Podcast 87

This week we continue with part three of a four part series looking at how the best explanation of our consciousness is an intelligent Creator.

Resources:

Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004 – Interview with J.P Moreland

Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary, The Immortal Mind, 2025, **Ref1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1YWy5SQPhg

“Thus he concluded that abstract thought is a function of something other than or beyond the physical brain.  He came to define the mind as the element in an individual “that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons.”  **Ref1

“Well, a simple definition is that consciousness is what you’re aware of when you introspect.  When you pay attention to what’s going on inside of you, that’s consciousness.”  Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004

Webster's Online Def:

1  a: the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself

    b : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact

2  : the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought

“This surgery led to truly remarkable neuroscience research in the twentieth century.  Here’s the most radical thing it tells us:  Even when the brain is split in half, many important aspects of the mind remain unified.  Thus, the mind is something that the brain isn’t.  **Ref1

“Thirty years later, in 2017, neuroscientist Yair Pinto and his colleagues concluded, after reviewing decades of brain-splitting research, that the most accurate summary of the research is this: Split-brain patients have split perception but unified consciousness.”  **Ref1

“Reflecting on questions like these, he shed light on the overall mind-brain relationship.  That is, Penfield observed that the mind has an existence independent of the brain, and that the mind uses the brain to interact with the world, in a way analogous to the way a computer programmer uses a computer to accomplish tasks.”  **Ref1

“Again and again, Penfield found a duality in consciousness – some thoughts (such as experiences from childhood) could be evoked by stimulation of the brain itself, while others (awareness of one’s current circumstances and the capacity for reflection and reason) could not.”  **Ref1

“But there was a key exception to what Penfield could stimulate in the brain.  He was never able to stimulate abstract thought – that is, the sense of self, the capacity to reason, and the exercise of free will.” **Ref1

“He could evoke movements, sensations, memories, and emotions.  But he could not evoke what he called the “mind,” which corresponds to the capacity for abstract thought and free will (or, in philosophical terms, the immaterial spiritual powers of the soul”.  Penfield thought this exclusion of a whole class of thoughts – abstract conceptual thought and free will – was remarkable, and it is.”  **Ref1

“For example, when I write a mathematical equation on a piece of paper, the area of my brain that generates the movement of my right hand can be localized to millimeter accuracy on the precentral gyrus of my left frontal lobe.  But my understanding of the equation cannot be localized at all.”  **Ref1