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Positive Atheism – Cliff Walker : Relative Ethics and Absolute Condemnations, part 1 of 9

We now begin a critique of Positive Atheism‘s Cliff Walker’s attempts to criticize the Bible. I will consider his writing on the issue of whether we can be ethical and moral without God.1

In the article which I will consider, Cliff Walker was responding to an inquiry from someone seeking to justify their presuppositions by “doing research for an Independent Study at Rutgers University, New Jersey, to provide empirical data showing that one can be ethical or moral without God.”

The segments will be parsed as follows:

Part 1: Introduction and Absolute Relativism
Part 2: A Quandary? and Arguments from Authority Part 3: Atrocious Outrage

Part 4: Atrocious Lack of Resistance and Atrocious Slavery

Part 5: Atrocious Genocide Part 6: Atrocious Human Sacrifice Part 7: Atrocious Male Chauvinism Part 8: The Filter of Human Reason

Part 9: In Conclusion and Some Studies Studied

Introduction:
To his credit, Cliff Walker points out that various such studies are of questionable accuracy for various reasons. I have found that Vox Day has done a admirable job in both referring to such studies, drawing out their details, as well as discussing their problems and referencing more balanced studies. These may be found in Vox Day’s book The Irrational Atheist (downloadable here) pp. 19-20, 103, 119-120, 127, 145, 182, 188 to name a few (I will provide some examples below after the Conclusion under Some Studies Studied in part 11).

I would like to begin by pointing out one of those meaningless statements for which Cliff Walker has an apparent fondness, “if there is no God, then all who are ethical became that way without Him!” [italics in original]. This is certainly true given certain materialistic presuppositions. However, may we not state, “if there is no God, then all who consider themselves ethical became that way by conveniently subjective definitions of what is ethical!” Or, given a certain set of theistic presuppositions we may state, “if there is a God, then all who are ethical became that way by Him!”

Cliff Walker also presents an alleged quandary, “Does God approve of something because it is right, or is something right because God approves of it?” Presupposing absolute materialism, may we also quandarize thusly, “Do atheists approve of something because it is right, or is something right because atheists approve of it?”
The Euthyphro Dilemma cuts both ways.

Absolute Relativism:No, my friends my quandarizing was not farfetched. Consider that Cliff Walker wrote:

“I use the terms good and evil and right and wrong as shorthand, for the purpose of discussion, to describe how many people think. My current understanding of reality does not recognize any intrinsic good or evil.” [italics in original]

This statement is of crucial importance for various reasons. For instance, we must logically read “My current understanding of reality does not recognize any intrinsic good or evil” as “As an atheist I know that all we have in the way of ethics is personal opinion-what I referred to as ‘how many people think’-but I will use the terms good and evil and right and wrong anyhow since without them I could not besmirch the Bible, God, Christians, or religiosity in general. Thus, I will do so even while admitting to having no logical reasons but merely a convenient way to express my personal prejudices.”

Thus, given that there is no intrinsic good or evil; any condemnations of the Bible, God, Christians, or religiosity in general are based upon “how many people think” but if “many” other “people think” otherwise then Cliff Walker’s condemnations are either simply null and void being relegated to the realm of personal preference or perhaps outweighed by the number of many more people who think otherwise. He is arguing from relative ethics and therefore discredits his own condemnations.


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