Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IVb: Collectivism, Evil and Slavery

This will be the final installment of my extended reply to Dustin Segers’ questions for atheists. My previous responses to Segers can be found here:

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part I: Intro and the Nature of Truth
Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part II: The Nature of Logic 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIa: The Uniformity of Nature 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIb: The Problem of Induction 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IVa: Objective Morality

In the present entry, I continue my exploration of Segers’ final question, namely:

”How do you account for objective morality without God?"

I have already provided a direct response to this question in my previous blog entry. In this entry, I explore some of the political implications of the moral system found in Christianity, focusing on Christianity’s proclivity towards collectivism, its affinity with Nazism and communism, the problem of evil, and the issue of slavery.

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IVa: Objective Morality

I am back! I had originally intended to post my response to Segers’ question about morality back in April, but I had several conferences to attend and I also moved into a new house on the outskirts of Bangkok. There’s still much to do and I’m extremely busy, but I have managed to devote some snippets of time here and there to my writing. Not ideal, but I’ll take what I can get!

So many issues came up as I was writing about the contrasts between (genuinely) objective morality and what passes for morality in Christianity, that I have decided to split this portion of my reaction to Segers into two different blog entries. In the present entry I answer Segers’ question about morality, provide definitions for important terms relevant to his question (e.g., what is morality? What is objectivity? Etc.), emphasize the importance of focusing on the individual when discussing morality, examine the 10 commandments, explore the topic of how one determines his own values, and make some points about the abortion debate.

In the follow-up entry (IVb), I will highlight the collectivistic implications of Christian morality and explore Christianity’s permissive view of slavery.

Throughout all of my discussion I draw attention to the stark contrasts between objective morality and Christian morality, leaving no question that Christian morality is entirely unfit for human life and certainly not to be confused with a moral code which is in fact objective in nature. To serve this end I make use of some dazzling quotations from defenders of Christianity themselves.

The previous four entries in my response to Segers can be found here:

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part I: Intro and the Nature of Truth
Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part II: The Nature of Logic 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIa: The Uniformity of Nature 

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIb: The Problem of Induction

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part IIIa: The Uniformity of Nature

I now continue with my series of responses to several questions Christian apologist and “church-planter” Dustin Segers poses to atheists. This will be the third installment in this series. The first two included my responses to Segers’ first two questions, which can be found here:

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part I: Intro and the Nature of Truth

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part II: The Nature of Logic

Let us now consider his third question:

3. Science - "How do you answer the problem of induction from a secular perspective?"

Ah, now this one’s juicy!

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part II: The Nature of Logic

In this second installment of my series answering Dustin Segers’ apologetic questions for atheists, I focus on Segers’ question about logic. (My initial blog entry responding to Segers can be found here).

This one’s a biggie, so buckle up and hold on tight. You’re in for a wild ride!

Answering Dustin Segers’ Presuppositionalism, Part I: Intro and the Nature of Truth

Christian apologist Dustin Segers (remember him?) recently posted an entry on his blog in which he tells about his experiences at something called the “Reason Rally.” Segers used the words ‘sophisticated’ and ‘blasphemous’ to describe what he witnessed at the event, which he calls “an opportunity to trash religion in general and Christianity specifically.” I’m guessing any non-religious assembly must by its very nature be guilty of this particularly nefarious misdeed. Believers gather on a weekly basis to condemn non-believers and fancy themselves as numbering among “the chosen,” but when non-believers gather at an annual meet open to all comers, it’s specifically intended to “trash” Christianity.