Hogwash, Prager. When secularists want to do away with God's morals as having come from God, but want to keep the morals anyway, they often resort to evolution. "It's the preservation of the herd," they reason, "it's in our genes to protect every member of the human population so the next generation of humans can continue."
That's about it. Seems like a valid reason to me, if you're careful not to look too deep.
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It sounds like Prager is being disingenuous here, although I didn't hear him say this.
ReplyDeleteI know that Prager is familiar with humanism because I have heard him speak about it knowledgably. But then I have heard him dumb himself down for his listeners and talk as if he never heard of humanism, or of conservatism either for that matter.
When I put a title in quotes it means that Prager said this. Usually it's as close to word-for-word as I can get while I'm typing, but sometimes I will condense or replace "it" with Prager's antecedent ("the book says" instead of "it says") and various other adaptations that hopefully don't change the meaning of the sentence.
ReplyDeleteThis particular statement he has made many times. The argumnt begin tht God, even if you don't believe in him, forms an absolute basis for morality. You can dismiss him as a mere idea or opinion, but when an entire culture has his statements written, carefully copied and unchangeable and in place for over three thousand years, you have an absolute. People who don't have those words don't have an absolute and the notions of what is right and what is wrong are changeable.
Thus, one generation can hold that eating meat is just fine, the next can claim that it's a sin punishable by death. And as long as you can get enough people to agree with you, your opinion of right and wrong could become law punishable by death. But if you're going to run society by those written rules, the crime punishable by death (regardless of whether you or I like it) will always be punishable by death.
For the atheist who believes in good and evil and doesn't believe in God, the definition of good and evil are subjective, dependent only on his opinion. I know it's offensive to imply that your idea of right and wrong are changeable and frivolous; I'm not trying to offend. But you have to admit that's where you get your notions of right and wrong.
I have heard people invoke evolution and herd survival as an authority beyond individual opinion. "The reason we do suchandso is to provide more survivability for the next generation."
Fine, but then you have to explain acts of goodness and "heroic self-sacrifice", such as rushing into a burning building to save a baby. How does a fertile adult killing itself and destroying its own genes for the sake of an infant with 13 years of dependency ahead of it in a species with high infant mortality, do any good for the next generation, when humans are so good at producing new units? Especially if the parent of the existing infant kills itself and leaves the infant parentless, ready to die because it cannot fend for itself?
As a biologist I will assert that I understand the human herd somewhat and that evolution is a very poor authority for human goodness. If you don't understand the issue we can go into it more deeply.
And that is why Prager has said that without a God (an absolute) there is no [absolute] basis (meaning no basis other than opinion) for good and evil.
As a matter of fact, he is discussing it right now on the rebroadcast of today's show on KHNR, which is where I usually listen to him.