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In view is Ross Rosenfeld’s article “The attacks on atheists continue: Gov. John Kasich insults nonbelievers, and, par for the course, almost nobody notices,” New York Daily News, April 27, 2017 AD. Atheist, and actor, Daniel Radcliffe has noted that “As an atheist, I often have to deal with the ‘moral compass’ argument: the idea that morality cannot exist without belief in a deity.” Well, from the get go he has misstated the argument and thus, any counterargument will, by definition, be faulty.
These are the sorts of issues that are generally dealt with in tweet sized one liners because they are layer issues and many think that simply picking off the onion’s dry outer layer is enough.
The claim is not that morality cannot exist without belief in a deity but that morality cannot exist without a deity. And here I have to elucidate two issues.
Firstly, as I elucidate in my text and video post Ethics vs. Morality: by definition morality refer to the mores which merely describe that which people do and so are relative, situational, culturally determined, etc. By definition ethics refer to the ethos which actually prescribes that which people out to do and are thus absolute, universal, etc., applicable to all people in all times and all places—regardless of chronology, geography and worldview.
This is just something to keep in mind and I will take Radcliffe to be referring to ethics which some term absolute morals or universal morals.
Secondly, it is not even simply a case of that morality cannot exist without a generic deity since a deity who promulgates an ethical code would be a personal being. Also, for example, consider a god such as Islam’s Allah: since the concept is strict monotheism then Allah existed alone for all eternity and when he creates humans he must, by definition, arbitrarily invent ethics for them to follows. Now, consider a God such as Christianity’s YHVH: since the concept is Trinitarian monotheism then YHVH enjoyed relationships eternally, those relationships are dynamic as they are enjoyed amongst the persons within the Godhead and yet, they are conflict free as God is one. Thus, when He creates humans He, by definition, expresses the ethos which proceeds forth from His very nature, His very essence, His very being which is relational—for details, see VIDEO: Resolving the Euthyphro dilemma.
Daniel Radcliffe, or the New York Daily News which did not do a good job elucidating when Radcliffe is being quoted or paraphrased, then notes that “45% of Americans say that a belief in a god is necessary to have good values.” Well, 100% of Americans should say as much since, again, “belief in a god” is not the issue. God’s ethical laws are written upon our hearts and administered via our conscience regardless of whether we believe in God or not.
On another note as to how this issue is more multifaceted than it seems, reference is made to “good values” but that is just the issue at hand: who defines “good”? If poop-culture de jour or even the culture at large then “good” is an ever changing standard, which makes it no standard at all, and so everyone can simply self-identify as being “good”—why do you think that common parlance has people un-contextually asking each other “you good?” about thing that do no pertain to morals or ethics and having people rely “I’m good,” see In consideration of common parlance phraseology: “I’m good”
Now, Daniel Radcliffe’s comments followed on Gov. John Kasich of Ohio who noted that religion “gives us a compass as to how we should behave” and without religion it “we can begin to trash one another and justify our own actions.” Note that “religion” is the article’s term and I am unsure of the term Kasich employed. In fact, the article states, “It was clear that by ‘objective realities,’ Kasich meant a belief in a deity.” He also noted, “If a culture doesn’t have a set of objective realities and a way in which to judge our own behavior or to guide our own behavior, I think we get lost, and we’re seeing that today” which is what I was noting above.
Ross Rosenfeld notes that Kasich, et al. “who claim that atheists have no moral compass, don’t consider their comments to be prejudicial or insulting, but they are. They’re also wrong.” Well, again, they are wrong in as far as they are inaccurately stated, inaccurately paraphrased, etc. Atheists do, indeed, have a moral compass and it is one that they beg, borrow and steal from Judeo-Christian ethics and not one derived from an Atheists worldview. Their compass is God’s ethos regardless of whether or not they “believe in” Him—and keeping in mind that we can sear our conscious “as with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2).
Rosenfeld refers to a “2014 study conducted at the University of Illinois at Chicago found that atheists are no less likely to commit altruistic acts than religious people. And a study in 2015 from the University of Chicago found that atheist children are more likely to share than religious children.” Yet, this is irrelevant since the premise is faulty. However, the facts are that more all-encompassing research shows that Atheists and Agnostics are the least ethical, charitable, content, etc. amongst us, see Are Atheists Healthy, Happy, Moral, etc.?
Rosenfeld actually states, “I hate to break it to the governor, but our troubles are not caused by a lack of belief in a deity” and he literally does not know how right he is. And in typical Atheist activist form, he merely asserts, without evidence that our troubles are “compounded by our disavowal of science and the scientific method” apparently, the very same scientific method that was invented by Bible believers. Also, I am not aware of any disavowal of science but a disavowal of the Atheistic worldview based interpretations of science. He also states that evolution is “a scientific fact” without bothering to define evolution: it is all and any changes which any and all bio-organisms have experienced, is it the origin of one species from another already previously existing species, etc.
In the end, realize it or not, Ross Rosenfeld calls for the establishment of a technocracy in desiring “more politicians believing in science, facts, and results based on observable evidence” whilst disregarding how worldview interprets science, facts and yes, even observable evidence (a classic example is whether the observable Grand Canyon is the result of lots of time and a little water or a little time and lots of water).
Thus, overall, Daniel Radcliffe may be good at pretending he is someone who he is not, reciting lines written by someone else, wearing clothed picked by someone else, with hair and makeup done by someone else on sets designed and built by someone else but merely being an Atheist celebrity does not mean he is conversant with such issues.
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