My alarm woke me up this morning at
6:43 AM to the sound of abrasive heavy metal music with philosophical prose. As
I lay there slightly annoyed by the rude and early awaking, I was startled how
applicable the lyrics were to the topic I was working on for this essay. They
began with:
We’ve been deceived for so long
now, we’ve stopped believin’. Can’t tell what’s right or what’s wrong, so you
stop feelin’. When violence and coercion are their tools, then you must stand,
scream; ‘No! Hell No!...We’re standing here waiting, you’ll listen to reason.
This is a war you cannot win (Remains) !
To me these lyrics symbolize a
war that is raging between religious thinkers trying to establish by argument
that God exists and nonreligious philosophers saying he doesn’t. A war that
very likely will never be won by either side any time soon. However, if reason
is capable of giving one side the victory, which side would benefit the most? I
am going to attempt to discover that question in this essay by examining
Bertrand Russell’s writing in “Why I Am Not a Christian.”
Russell uses his reasoning to
debunk five theories used by Christians in the past to support the evidence for
God through argument. His thoughts are very compelling on most occasions, but
lacking in support for me in how to determine right and wrong or good and evil.
In his argument against design,
he says it’s absurd to think we were made for wearing glasses or hunting
rabbits with white tails. Glasses are a byproduct of adaptation to our
environment to help us see those white tails better. It is one thing, however,
to jump from saying we’ve learned how to hunt rabbits because they have white
tails to saying we’ve adapted from protoplasm to a complex human individual.
“One does not simply walk into Mordor,” as Boromir said in Lord of the Rings (Jackson) . Meaning, one does
not simply go from simplicity to the most difficult thing we have knowledge of
very easily. However, if I accept this theory I should be able to back up
everything Russell says, if he is indeed correct we exist not because of design
but by evolutionary principles.
So how do we determine what is
right and wrong by evolutionary principles? If I cannot conclude that God is an
option because of Russell’s argument, that if God determined right and wrong
then it no longer means anything to say God is good, then I have to be able to
determine what is good for mankind without God.
Russell indicates he knew the
answer by posing the question to his readers that if we could be omniscient and
omnipotent with millions of years to perfect our creation (like God should have
for design theory), then why wouldn’t we create a world better than one with
the Ku Klux Klan or fascists? This argument seems straightforward enough. If
the KKK promotes hate, then why does a God with omniscience and omnipotence not
withhold the KKK from hating? Does God not know what is good for mankind?
Clearly it is ideal for zero hate to exist, and if zero hate existed, one is
left to conclude the world would be a better place. However, there is a flaw in
this line of thinking. It assumes that were I in a position of being able to do
whatever it took to uphold what is good for mankind, I’d have the foresight to
know that withholding a person’s decision to hate is the best possible outcome
for this world. It allows me to determine an individual’s decision, consequently
taking away any freedom to act on his own and giving any significance to the
meaning of what is better or worse for society. If I determined right and wrong
for all of mankind, wouldn’t I in effect be positioning myself as God? But we
already know from Russell’s statement that if God has determined right and
wrong it bears no significance on there being a true difference. Life would be
predetermined by me or God thus there would actually be no right or wrong
decision that could make the world a better place. I think it is safe to say
that Russell didn’t have omniscience or that he wanted to play the role of God
in his judgment leading to believing the world would be better off without the
KKK. So what might lead Russell to believe he could make such a judgment? I
believe the only explanation for his ability to make that judgment came from
his intuition. And because he is human, I must have the same intuition.
Therefore, I will insinuate that because we have adapted from a single-cell
organism into the forms of Homo sapiens we are today, we must through that same
adaptation have the ability to distinguish what is right and wrong for our
society in order to survive based on human intuition.
The first order of business is to
examine why the Ku Klux Klan is part of a defect in the world. If it is because
they are hateful and racist to minorities because they consider these people to
be inferior, then I must say I am judging this not based on the KKK’s survival
instinct, but on a different standard completely. If I were to consider their
life work through the evolutionary adaptation principle I would actually think
they are exemplifying the principle in its entirety, not failing it. Survival
of the fittest isn’t survival of all of humanity but rather survival of the
fittest creature. But if we are to redefine it as survival of ‘all of
humanity,’ then yes the Ku Klux Klan does not meet that requirement. Neither
does ISIS who is trying to create a religious cleansing by killing off
religious minorities who don’t convert to Islam (Watch) .
So if the KKK and ISIS are defects in society, they must be lesser evolved
people who do not have the correct principle of adaptation built into their
psychological intuition. If they are living primates, then those who have the
correct principle of adaptation built into their intuition must be a more
prominent majority of the society (as we’ve been surviving for quite some time
now). So if we can judge murderers, racists, and fascists by this principle of
intuition, we also must be allowed to put on the examination block pacifists
and religions who promote peace and obedience to the law.
If the KKK and ISIS are evil,
then what do pacifists or Christians do for society that is ‘better’ that we
would conclude it would be acceptable to leave them in creation had we the
omniscience and omnipotence to do so? Because if I’m allowed to make a judgment
call for the KKK then I have to be allowed a judgment call for Christians. The
Christian religion promotes “love your neighbor as yourself,” which includes
giving to the poor, providing for the widows, submitting to authority, and not
stealing, killing, or anything else that may demoralize the survival of ‘all of
humanity’ (Matthew, Paul and James) . So if Christians
(at least what their religion tells them to do) are such great examples for
exemplifying the principle of adaptation I defined earlier, then how is someone
who belittles them good for the survival of ‘all of humanity?’ Shouldn’t the
intuition of that person reveal to him that counting what Christians believe as
pointless would have negative effects for the survival of any Christian who
believes it is necessary to have faith in a God to give him a sense of right
and wrong? If belittling a person who lives by the principles of adaptation
(even if it’s disguised in the form of religion), is wrong then we are all
guilty of falling short of the standard of intuition that evolution’s method of
adaptation has instilled in us. And if we’ve all fallen short, then none of us
are actually at the standard by which adaptation for the survival of ‘all of
humanity’ operates. Therefore we cannot enforce a principle we have not
attained ourselves without being at risk of confusing our failure as the
principle of intuition we are trying to implement. In other words, I can’t stop
a certain religious group or extremist from doing what they wholehearted
believe is true because I risk misconceiving my lack of adaptation for
intuition when in reality the extremist has only come one step closer to the standard
than me. Perhaps the extremist, unbeknownst to him yet known to the survival
principle, actually plays a role in killing an individual that had they not
been killed would have played a role in starting a nuclear war that might be
the death of ‘all of humanity.’
In essence, there is no way to
determine what is right or wrong for humanity, only that each person is trying
to adapt, procreate, and survive in a way that is befitting to themselves.
Therefore, no human can ever state that there is an absolute standard for
determining right and wrong, only that the standard is subjective to each
person’s intuition.
So how do we go about examining
if it is acceptable to ask if there is a right and wrong in this world or that
it could be better with or without a single person? If nature cannot conjure up
right and wrong in of itself through adaptation, and nature was not conceived
by God, then there is no objective right and wrong only what is subjective to
the living inhabitant’s arbitrary intuition. If Russell is right and the world
was contrived by statistical averages that emerge from the laws of chance
(which he uses against the Natural-Law Argument), then anything that is
arbitrary, random, and based on statistical chances must come from that which conceived
it. If that which is random gave birth to human existence, then that which is
based on arbitrary statistical chance must be implemented in the continual
survival of humanity. If what is random is best for the survival of ‘all of
humanity,’ then an arbitrary life style should help me survive the best. But
this is illogical. I eat on a regular basis and maintain adequate hygiene so I
don’t catch a disease and die off quickly. I don’t drive illogically down the
road, but I obey the traffic signals to increase the chances of my survival.
Therefore, since what is arbitrary is not best for my survival, then it is not
what contrived my existence. And if random statistical chance did not contrive
my existence then it also did not conceive the world from nothing. We are left
to conclude the world does not exist. This is obviously not so. Therefore, the
only other explanation is that something else conceived the existence of our
world. If it was not arbitrary chance we must reevaluate the possibility of God
a further time.
If God is a possibility, then I
am left to consider that one of our premises for designing the argument against
God must have been false. I believe the answer lies in how we define an all
good God who has omniscience and omnipotence. It would take another essay to
redefine the character and power of God for philosophers to use in their
arguments, but one thing I do not have to redefine is this: my God (the Christian
God) says he is good and there is now evil in the world. He also says that he
sent the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to rescue us from the evil in the
world. So if the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth is God like he claims to
be and he gave his life and power for humanity by dying on a cross and then
rising again 3 days later as eye-witnesses report, then I have to make a
personal decision to believe he had the power to create the universe. And if
God has that much power, I imagine he can restore order and justice to
everything in his perfect timing.
Therefore, I conclude that reason
does yield a one sided victory, and that victory is in favor of the existence
of God.
Work Cited
Matthew,
Paul and James. "Life Application Study Bible." Matthew, James,
and Romans. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1988. 1582,
1904, 2092. Print.
Remains,
All That. "A War You Cannot Win." A War You Cannot Win. cond.
LLC Razor & Tie Direct. By Rob Graves. 2012. iTunes.
Watch,
Human Rights. Iraq: ISIS Abducting, Killing, Expelling Minorities. 19
June 2014. Web. 30 Jan 2015.
