Atheist Affirms Existence Of God

Both Richard Dawkins(PhD Zoology) and Michael Ruse(PhD Philosophy of Science) reasoning on Morality lead to a conclusion that both deny, namely God exist.

Both Dawkins and Ruse remarks on Morality affirms the truthfulness of the two premises of Moral Argument for existence of God.

Premise 1. If God does not exist, then objective moral value and duties do not exist.

Richard Dawkins On Premise One:

In November 1995′s Scientic American p.81-85 Dawkins made it clear after his publication of River Out of Eden(BasicBooks, 1995) his position on Morals values and duties.

He writes in God’s Utility Function:

Quote:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the mine that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.

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 and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A. E Housman put it:

For nature, heartless, witless nature
Will neither care nor know

DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

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Four years earlier Richard Dawkin commented at Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, ‘The Ultraviolet Garden’, (No. 4, 1991), :

Quote

We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. … This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object’s sole reason for living.

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Some atheists, wants to give their own subjective meaning to what Dawkins view on Morals, namely that it only applies to nature, outside ourselves. But that is not what Dawkins is try to set forth. He clearly nails his meaning in his book, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995), p112

Quote:

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.

Unquote:

I agree with Dawkins, on that if  atheism is true, then objective moral value(good and bad) and Objective moral duties(right and wrong) are at the bottom do not exist. We simply dance to its music of nature.

Richard Dawkins chain of thinking affirms the truthfulness of premise one of Moral Argument, If God does not exist, then Objective moral values and duties do not exist.

Michael Ruse On Premise One:

In The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), 262, 268-269, “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,” Ruse argue that:

“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.”

There is not foundation for the objective moral values and duties. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. Morality in Evolution is just an aid to survive and pass on the gene.

Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties exist

Richard Dawkins On Premise Two:

Dawkins affirm the objective moral values and duties as he condemns child abuse and some evils of religion as he “calling attention to an anomaly”(using his terms)

In the wake of the current scandal over child abuse by priests , I have had a letter from an American woman in her mid forties who was brought up Roman Catholic. She has two strong recollections from when she was seven. She was sexually abused by her parish priest in his car. And around the same time a little schoolfriend of hers, who had tragically died, went to hell because she was a Protestant. Or so my correspondent was led to believe by the then official doctrine of her church. Her view now is that, of these two examples of Roman Catholic child abuse, the one physical and the other mental, the second was by far the worst(Religion’s Real Child Abuse, By RICHARD DAWKINS Added: Monday, 15 May 2006 at 1:00 AM)

Dawkins believes that it is objectively wrong to sexually abuse another person, thus affirms Objective moral values and duties do exist.

Michael Ruse On Premise Two:

In his book  Darwinism Defended (London: Addison-Wesley, 1982), p. 275. Ruse writes:

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.

Thus affirms he also that Objective moral values and duties do exist.

Where does the Premises logically leads?

What both fail to see is that, their own reasoning on morality leads logically by Proof by Contraposition to the conclusion,  both denies, that God exist.

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

2. Objective moral values and duties do exist

3. Therefore God exist

For the full explanation of  Moral Argument for Existence of God.