O.K. Leadership for America Key of Liberty Project

Apprentice Scholar Challenge

“Why complicate “good moral people” with the belief of God,”  is an ongoing conversation from last week.    

 Jessica L., by the way, insightful paper!  YOU ROCK!  

 

Sister Darcey Question of the Week?

“Are ‘Morals’ dependent on the existence of God?”

based on the essay, “A Response to Richard Dawkins"  by Dennis Prager

Without God, “good” and “evil” cannot be objective realities, because to do so assigns personality, and indicates some sort of opposing force (deific).   The two words alone become opinions—substitutes for “I like it” and “I don’t like it.” 

Morality in its godless form derives its reason from the masses -- so society dictates.

Murder:           God dictates Thou shalt not.

Atheist response:  Reason dictates thou should not.

Flaws inthis  reason are proved through historical perspective: 

1.       The pre-Christian Germanic tribes of Europe reasoned that killing innocent people was acceptable and normal –survival of the fittest.

2.       South African apartheid acceptable in that society.

3.       Jews in Nazi Germany

4.       Slavery throughout history

When self-interest and reason collide, reason usually loses. Hence, the word “rationalize” — using reason to argue for what is wrong.   As a whole, society tends to respond en mass in its own best interests—egocentrically.

Prager states, “Perhaps the most powerful proof of the moral decay that follows the death of God is [our universities.]

Princeton University awarded its first tenured professorship in bioethics to Peter Singer, an atheist who has argued, among other things, that that “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee” and that bestiality is not immoral.”

Empirical Evidences from his article:  

When the Jewish authors of  the following study on altruism, were asked who they would go to for safety, they state they would pick Christians.

Dennis Prager interviewed Pearl and Sam Oliner, two professors of sociology at Humboldt State University in California and the authors of one of the most highly regarded works on altruism, The Altruistic Personality, about  the Oliners’ lifetime of study of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.  The Oliners, it should be noted, are secular, not religious, Jews; they had no religious agenda.  I asked Samuel Oliner, “Knowing all you now know about who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, if you had to return as a Jew to Poland and you could knock on the door of only one person for rescue, would you knock on the door of a Polish lawyer, a Polish doctor, a Polish artist, or a Polish priest?”

Without hesitation, he said, “a Polish priest.” And his wife immediately added, “I would prefer a Polish nun.”

I would agree with the final comment by the author in the article stating that atheistic supporters have a right to their atheism, but not to intellectual dishonesty about it.