Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) described “New Atheists” as early twenty-first century atheist authors promoting atheism.
The “New Atheist” label for these critics [that include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens] of religion and religious belief emerged out of journalistic commentary on the contents and impacts of their books. A standard observation is that New Atheist authors exhibit an unusually high level of confidence in their views. Reviewers have noted that these authors tend to be motivated by a sense of moral concern and even outrage about the effects of religious beliefs on the global scene. It is difficult to identify anything philosophically unprecedented in their positions and arguments, but the New Atheists have provoked considerable controversy with their body of work.( The New Atheists, pub. James E. Taylor, IEP)
Taylor explained that “New Atheist authors share the central belief that there is no supernatural or divine reality of any kind.[…] The moral component is the assumption that there is a universal and objective secular moral standard.”
To avoid painting all atheists with a single brush, I have used New Atheists in this article as described by Taylor.
Friedrich Nietzsche And English Flat Heads
As New Atheist, Mary Anne Evans, also known as G. Eliot, rejected the existence of God yet held to objective humanistic moral standard. Nietzsche notices that by getting rid of Christian God, a person cannot cling on Christian (Objective) moral standard. Nietzsche mounded ridicule upon G. Eliot and her fellow. Only “English Flat Heads” would not see the consequences of the death of God.
Nietzsche expounded the “English inconsistency” in rejection of supernatural reality and yet clinging to objective moral standard. He explained that “They [English Flat Heads] are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality […] By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands”(Nietzsche 1982: 69-70)
What Nietzsche was trying to show, is that if God does not exist, then “There are altogether no moral facts”(ibid, 55) Morality explained Nietzsche “has truth only if God is the truth – it stands or falls with faith in God”(1968: 70). Though I would substitute “faith in God” with “existence of God”, since its ontological base of morality, and not epistemological that is in question, I believe Nietzsche is correct. With the death of God comes the death of objective moral values and duties.
Jean-Paul Sartre resonates with Nietzsche in showing that by abandoning God namely God does not exist, “it is necessary to draw the consequences of his [God] absence right to the end.” Sartre also noticed the inconsistency of French professors’, towards 1880, secular morality. As New Atheists and Nietzsche’s G. Elliot “English Flat Heads”, these professors, according to Sartre, believed that “nothing will be changed if God does not exist; we shall rediscover the same norms of honesty, progress and humanity, and we shall have disposed of God as an out-of-date hypothesis which will die away quietly of itself.” He explained:
The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that ‘the good’ exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: ‘If God did not exist, everything would be permitted’; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.”(Sartre 2007: 28)
If there is no supernatural or divine reality then there is no objective ontological ground to base a universal and objective moral standard. Naturalism, assumed by New Atheists, cannot account for the objective moral values and duties, if indeed objective morality exists. Wilson and Ruse expounded that; “ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes in order to get us to cooperate”(Ruse & Wilson 1989: 51). Ruse goes even further:
“The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than our hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when someone says, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory.”(Ruse 1989: 268-9)
Ruse nailed it even further as he contended that “[t]he Darwinian argues that morality simply does not work (from a biological perspective), unless we believe that it is objective. Darwinian theory shows that, in fact, morality is a function of (subjective) feelings; but it shows also that we have (and must have) the illusion of objectivity.”(Ruse 1998: 253).
Holding a similar stance with Paul Kurtz and Julian Baggini, Richard Dawkins correctly reiterates, if God does not exist[no designer], then “at bottom,[there is] no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”(Dawkins 1995: 85) He explained:
“Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”(Dawkins 1995: 112)
Are New Atheists Nietzsche’s “English Flat Heads”?
C. S. Lewis pointed out what Nietzsche would call “English inconsistency” as he wrote “[a] moment after they have admitted that good and evil are illusions, you will find them exhorting us to work for posterity, to educate, revolutionise, liquidate, live and die for the good of the human race”(Lewis 2001: 59) Michael Ruse, though cannot be grouped with New Atheists, perfectly fits Lewis observation as Ruse contended: “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, “2+2=5”.”(Ruse 1982: 275).
New Atheists, whom I believe Nietzsche would tag them “Flat Heads”, fail to see the necessity of drawing the consequences of the absence of God. If God does not exist, then there is no objective ontological ground for “a universal and objective secular moral standard.”
Are New Atheists Nietzsche’s “English Flat Heads”? I will let you decide as I wind up with Dawkins’ inconsistency, which I believe, is common in New Atheist’s “atheology”.
As an academic scientist I am a passionate Darwinian, believing that natural selection is, if not the only driving force in evolution, certainly the only know force capable of producing the illusion of purpose which so strikes all who contemplate nature. But at the same time as I support Darwinism as a scientist, I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs. (Dawkins 2003: 10-11)
Question: If a New Atheist, what is the ontological ground for holding objective moral standard?
Bibliography:
Dawkins, Richard (1995). “God’s Utility Function”, in Scientific American, November 1995,
_____________________ (1996) River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life. Basic Books.
____________________ (2003): A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections On Hope, Lies, Science, and Love. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1968). Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ. New York. Penguine Books.
________________________(1982) The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. And ed. W. Kaufmann. New York. Penguine Books.
Lewis, C. S. (2001) Miracles. San Francisco: Harper Books.
Ruse, Michael & Wilson, E. O (1989). The evolution of ethics. New Scientist 17, 108-28
Ruse, Michael (1982). Darwinism Defended. London: Addison-Wesley
________________ (1989). “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics” in The Darwinian Paradigm. London: Routledge.
__________________ (1998). Taking Darwin Seriously. Amherst, NY: Primetheus Books.
Sartre, Jean-Paul (2007) Existentialism Is a Humanism. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
Prayson Daniel
Nietzsche also elaborated that there could be no moral fact because morality is relative to the environment that has cultivated the moral issue. As in: kill every last man, woman, and child of this particular tribe; yet, a few pages later it becomes a commandment not to kill. Primitive man obviously hit a point in their timeline where a consensus was formed that it would be prudent to maintain a sense of community long before the first patriarchs hit the scene. Which led to the concept of respect for others and their property. Giving us agriculture and civilisation long before the Word unified into a concept.
Haha…long time no see, Prayson…boy, things have changed around here…
Just read this. A very interesting and provocative read. This sort of thinking has always stumped me, caused a panic attack at one stage because I quite literally felt that any action I could ever take was utterly without point… but it must be pondered over and, although I do love the three [remaining] horsemen… bleh, a lot to consider.
I have walked that path Richard. Lets keep pondering. Wonderful blog you and Larry host. I am enjoying your thoughts.
What is most important here though is that Nietzsche realized that if you kill God, then there is nothing more than nihilism. You no longer have moral values and duties. Rape, murder, slander, etc., would no longer be evil; such acts would just be unfashionable. Nietzsche didn’t try and retain objective moral values in his philosophy. The Ubermensch didn’t act as an objective value giver, because it is free from the “failings” of truth and essence. Nietzsche was attempting to create a new world, one of Supermen. A way to visualize this concept is to look at Hitler and the Nazi regime, while it’s not a true concept of Nietzsche’s philosophy (he was against antisemitism and German nationalism) you can see that Hitler read Nietzsche’s work (though not too clearly).
Yes – agreed. There is no objective moral standard. But Nietzsche was wrong. He was the one blinded by the culture he was too close to. There is no real objective moral standard even if God does exist. Different Christians have different views on some fundamental moral questions.
As was pointed out earlier, anthropologists find some similarities in pretty much all cultures’ moral codes. It would seem to be a natural part of our extended phenotype. If a moral code is universal it just comes down to a question of what kind of world we want to live in. I also care about the kind of world my kids, and friends and family live in.
Those of us who follow the enlightenment based position think that ultimately we are all connected and our best hope of guaranteeing a good world for those we care about is to include everyone in the In Group covered by our moral code.
It’s funny that you think the lack of an objective moral code is a good apologetic though… It just sounds like wishful thinking to me.
Very well written! I’ve been trying to learn more about Christian apologetic and this looks like the place to start!
You are welcome Niku
Just let me know what you will like, books, papers, video, or podcasts, I will be glad to help 
Prayson
You did a superb job here discussing complex arguments and making them understandable to us non-philosophers. And your own argument is right on target. We see the breakdown of society’s “loss of faith” in the moral decay that seems to be gaining ground every day.
“With the death of God comes the death of objective moral values and duties.” Sadly, “enlightened” humanity seeks to destroy even the “Natural Law” that God has instilled in the conscience of his creation.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
I like your essay, here, re morality and atheism; however, it seems to me that atheist scientists and believers alike are failing to smell the coffee, in that whether there is a divine moral code or not, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, the world is in a moral crisis of, dare I say it, biblical proportions. The argument for intrinsic morality of any kind is moot, it seems to me, if no one is going to follow it anyway.
I think a better argument for morality would be the existence of the holy spirit which indwells the believer, thereby enabling moral behaviour by enabling moral *discernment*.
Hope to hear from you again.
Rose
Thank you Rose.
Rose, the existence of codes does not mean that we follow them. God gave his ten commandments, and I have not kept even one. Does ten commandments stop existing because I do not believe in them or follow them? I think they do Rose.
You know the world is in moral crisis because you know objective moral values and duties exist. If they did not, then crisis make no sense since you could believe subjectively that the world is in moral crisis why a others think its a moral revolution and brilliant. Which is absurd.
Thank you for wonderful comment Rose.
Prayson
Hi Prayson,
You are on solid ground and Nietzsche/Ruse are correct however to TNA there need not be an ontological ground for holding an objective standard. Whether morals are objective or subjective makes no difference as long as TNA decide what is moral.
God Bless
I find it interesting that if we go back to one of Darwin’s own comments on his work, namely that if we can’t prove the issues he noted as outstanding – such as the lack of fossil records (at the time) – his theories fall flat. One and a half centuries later we have approx. 250k more fossil records, yet these are no nearer to explaining the Darwinian process of evolution – and hence Darwin is discredited by his own mouth. Yet he is still held up there as the authoritative figure. As they say in the classics: “Go figure!”
I love a thought provoking debate! If morality is not objective being founded in that which transcends existence, then morality is merely subjective whims of temporal value volitionally granted by the individual or the group.
Human rights are based on ethical truths, but if ethical truths are only a result of temporal evolutionary progression – then there are no ethical truths.
Effectively – if there is no basis for ethical truths that transcend mankind, then the very ethic for how we treat mankind will be left to the whims of the individual or the group.
Everyone knows that individuals often justify an evil deed with a natural desire, and everyone also knows that governments (groups of people) often justify murder and oppression through assuming power.
If these are to be the sources for the present ethics of men – our fate is grim, indeed.
Brilliant chain of reasoning Ben. Thank you a lot
Hi Prayson- (what a unique name) thanks for stopping by and liked my post. I have enjoyed reading your post and hopefully my FB and Twitter friends will like it too. Keep it up, brother! Cheers!
Thank you a lot
You are most welcome!
May the Lord flatten us all, one day, as he sovereignly sees fit.
Thank you for the Like. Your site is goooood! Perhaps you know the answer to my question, “Are there primitive Atheists?” Here’s what I found searching for the answer: http://askgodanything.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/primitive-atheists-update-1/
Please let me know if you have a clue.
Well thank you.
Yes there are. Leucippus(490-430 B.C), Democritus(460-360 B.C), Epicurus (341-271 B.C) and T. Lucretius Carus(96-55 B.C) held a naturalistic worldview(atomism).
I think from my studies and meditation of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophical thoughts, I could tell you Nietzsche understood Christ better than most of us. He understood God better than many of us that is why he was able to speak of the death of God. We need to look which understanding or type of God they say is dead or not exist rather than to make a sweeping understanding that for them God is dead. Because human by nature affirms or denies something or even concept from some kind of understanding about that thing or concept. Therefore those who speak of the non-existence of God speak of the non-existence of God which projected to them or by them.
Above all the article you was posted is very nice.
Great article! The absence of God leads to only one logical conclusion; self preservation. We see it all the time. Typically, the other side of the equation is a belief in evolution and that’s where self preservation comes in. A moral law, which is set by God’s existence, takes away from the concept of survival of the fittest. For example, Hitler ascribed to the thought of evolution and he tried to eradicate all those who were inferior beings. our actions are dictated by our beliefs. A belief that God does not exist only brings about actions that are void of His moral standard.
That being said, God did create us in His image and therefore, as much as we can try to run from it, that likeness will show itself. Tribes who have never heard the Gospel have shown an aptitude for morality based on God’s laws. The Bible even tells us that He writes His laws upon our hearts. What man does is try to rationalize his own desires of immorality by denying God and therefor pacifying their conscience so they can continue in their pursuit of immorality. In the end we must all put aside the notion that God does not exist and stand before Him on judgement day. That is why we are so in need of the Gospel.
Enjoyed the read and the dialog. Have you Alister McGrath’s book Why God Won’t Go Away, Is the New Atheism Running On Empty?
Not yet Dan. Its on my want-to-read list
Only one thought — thanks. Carley