Reading Time: 5 minutes If you, like me, are atheist, then you have no doubt had this question leveled at you as well. It’s ubiquitous in such circles, but it has no merit, really. Rather similar is the idea that if “God is dead” then we will just go about murdering babies. Let sociologist and colleague here at OnlySky […]
Divine Command Theory
Posted inPhilosophy
Divine command theory defended, and re-attacked
Reading Time: 5 minutes Having recently written a piece drawing on fellow OnlySky writing colleague Phil Zuckerman’s brilliant book What It Means To Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life, it is always nice to receive critiques of my writing. Just to remind you, the piece was about Divine Command Theory (DCT), which is the […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Divine command theory: How the religious are often not moral agents
Reading Time: 8 minutes Phil Zuckerman, a sociologist of religion and nonreligion and fellow OnlySky columnist, has written a superb book called What It Means To Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life that should be compulsory reading. One of the early chapters, “You Will Obey,” is well worth dwelling on as it zeroes […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Philosophy
Responding to Breuer on Conceptual Nominalism
Reading Time: 8 minutes Luke Breuer kindly responded to my request and provided a critique of my position of conceptual nominalism recently. I hope to look at his claims and analyse them in my reply here today. I have a forthcoming book that sets out my position with a lot more depth and clarity (Why I am Atheist and […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Philosophy, Religion, The Secular
Spontaneous Abortion: God Has the Right to Take Lives?
Reading Time: 6 minutes I was recently involved in a discussion/argument that started off with a Christian stating: We want freedom from stupid govt. lockdowns for a non-pandemic. [I will edit these quick Facebook comments only for grammar/punctuation.] Which then distilled down to a conversation about abortion. Because that’s what Christians do, right? I remained true to form: If […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
On Divine Command Theories
Reading Time: 4 minutes Christians are often quick to accuse atheists of having no grounding to their moral frameworks; however, the reality is that their own groundings are fraught with terminal issues. One such problematic moral framework is Divine Command Theory. The basic premise is this: morality does not exist independently of God, it is instead reflected (or perhaps […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Philosophy
My Atheistic Moral Philosophy; Objective, Subjective and Theistic Morality
Reading Time: 22 minutes As promised, here, finally, is a hopefully succinct synopsis (ha, er, impossible) of my moral philosophy. In setting it out, I will also counter positions adopted and claimed by theistic thinkers and apologists (am I implying apologists aren’t thinkers?). Let’s set out the basics. What is morality? Generally, the study of morality is split into three […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, The Secular
Atheists and Morality: Moral Oughts
Reading Time: 5 minutes Religionists so often bang out the claim that atheists have no basis for a moral ought. Take this comment, from another thread (Atheists and Morality: On Christian Theories of Ethics): Moral obligation ( ought ) and moral prohibition ( ought not ) make absolutely no sense in an essentially and ultimately meaningless existence. All you […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, The Secular
Atheists and Morality: On Christian Theories of Ethics
Reading Time: 7 minutes I was recently railing against naive claims that some theists mistakenly throw about. Let me give you some more of the chapter I wrote for John Loftus’ book Christianity Is Not Great, a continuation of that last post: On Christian Theories of Ethics I will endeavor to run briefly through two major Christian ethical theories to see […]
Posted inReligion
I Drew the Line at Canaan
Reading Time: 9 minutes I quit attending church nearly six years ago, at which point I had already been an atheist for two. And let me tell you, it’s not easy attending church as an atheist, much less teaching Sunday School as one (interesting story I’ll tell you about another time). Today I’d like to tell you about the last […]