Sunday, September 22, 2013

FacePalm of the Day - Debunking Christianity: The Basis for Morality is Empathy

John Loftus attempted to try to find a basis for morality apart from God and again fails. 

Do non-believers have a basis for saying some things cause harm? I think so. Just look at a burning child. We have a computer that computes the steps. Our brains. Such things cause harm. It's obvious. The basis for morality is empathy. The divine command theory has no room for it. If God is thought to command killing witches then empathy be damned. While there are two greatest commandments the only one that counts is the first one. Christians need not be concerned with the plight of human suffering, only loving the god in one's head.

Why the fail? Simple: True burning a child causes harm to the child, but why should that matter if I don't care? Loftus claims that empathy should be the  basis of not doing such evil acts as burning a child, but does that mean that it's okay to burn a child to death if I don't care about causing harm to the child? According to his logic, the only reason I would not cause another living thing wrong is because of the empathy I feel for other living things. But what do you do with people who feel no such empathy. Are they wrong? How can you tell? Loftus' basis for morality has no firm foundation. Why should I care about human suffering as long as it's not me? Loftus and other atheistic grounding for morality is no grounding at all.

Debunking Christianity: The Basis for Morality is Empathy