A Christian offers a psychopathic defense of morality

A Facebook friend recently introduced me to the writings of one Matthew Archbold, blogger for the National Catholic Register. Let's just say that he's no St. Thomas Aquinas.

In his post "Atheists Love You. They Just Don't Know Why," Archbold tries to show that the moral thinking of atheists is somehow dependent on or presupposes his religion.

Archbold's target is Richard Dawkins' charitable website. The site was created in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti early this year. At that time, Dawkins wrote on the website that "When donating via Non-Believers Giving Aid, you are helping to counter the scandalous myth that only the religious care about their fellow humans." Archbold had this to say about Dawkins' altruistic efforts:

If he’s helping people because he wants to help people then I almost hate to tell him that he’s kind of supporting some of our arguments. While Dawkins argues that he can be good without God, I think he’s actually only proving that Richard Dawkins can be good while not acknowledging God.

I have to wonder from what philosophical grounding does Dawkins’ altruism emanate? Why is other human life worth anything if there is no God? From what philosophical groundwork is he basing his good works on? Dawkins, it would seem to me, hasn’t defined his terms and is only borrowing our definition of “good.” Because without our definitions he’d have to ask the question, “What is good without God?” And that’s something I haven’t seen answered yet.

In fact, I think Dawkin’s efforts to do good is one of the best arguments for innate knowledge of right and wrong.

I almost hate to inform Mr. Dawkins that his little plot is actually helpful to believers as we believe that no matter what you espouse verbally each man has written on his soul the ability to tell right from wrong. And while Dawkins denies it, his actions indicate otherwise. There is a moral sense which you can ignore but your choosing to ignore or embrace it has no effect on its existence, much like God Himself.

Let's take Archbold's last point first. Archbold is clearly arguing that one cannot be good without God. In the third and fourth paragraphs, Archbold argues thus:

Human beings have an innate knowledge of right and wrong.
Therefore, no one can be good without God. 

This argument is obviously question-begging. For the conclusion does not follow without additional premises, which are (2) and (3) below:

1. Human beings have an innate knowledge of right and wrong. 
2. Only God can be the source of an innate knowledge of right and wrong.
3. An innate knowledge of right and wrong is necessary to do good. 
4. Therefore, no one can be good without God. 

Now, what reason has Archbold given the atheist to accept (2)? None. His readers will certainly accept it. But as a moral argument against atheism, this is a bush-league pile of shit, because it convinces only those who already agree with him.

In the second paragraph, Archbold asserts that God is the source of morality. The only argument he appears to give for this assertion is this: there is no other possible source of morality. Unfortunately, his lone premise is false. In Atheism: A Brief Insight (New York: Sterling, 2009), Julian Baggini writes:

[A]t the very root of morality is a kind of empathy or concern for the welfare of others, a recognition that their welfare also counts. This is, for most of us, a basic human instinct. Total indifference to the welfare of others is not normal human behavior, it is symptomatic of what we would normally call mental illness. Its most extreme form is that of the psychopath, who has no sense of the inner life of others at all. This recognition of the value of others is not a logical premise but a psychological one. If we accept it, then we have the starting point for all the thinking and reasoning about ethics that help us to make better decisions and become better people. But the truth of the premise, the fundamental conviction that others do count, is not something that can be demonstrated by logic. . . . Moral reasoning can only get going if we have a basic altruistic impulse to begin with (66). 

There is another possible source of morality: a basic altruistic impulse. Archbold would credit my possession of this impulse to a benevolent creator, but as we have seen, he has given us no reason whatsoever to believe that such a creator exists. The best evidence available to me that one can be good without God is that I actually am good without God. I am an atheist, and I and the atheists I know often have a greater capacity for morality than theists I know. And that is a fact.

The key statement Archbold makes is, "Why is other human life worth anything if there is no God?" The problem with Archbold's religion is that it is psychopathic. In his post, Archbold speculates that Dawkins' real motivations aren't exactly pure. Archbold writes, "If Dawkins is running this charity to show up religion and helping Haitians is only a secondary consequence then we could hardly claim that what he’s doing is good by most definitions." But notice this: when helping fellow human beings, Christians always have an ulterior motive, i.e., to do what pleases God. And Archbold seems to admit that this ulterior motive is actually their only motive, for if God does not exist, then they have no reason to help their fellow human beings at all.

The atheist helps her fellow human being whether it pleases anyone else or not, simply because it is the right thing to do. As Baggini writes,

[T]he average ethical atheist actually appears to have more moral merit than the average ethical religious believer. The reason for this is that religion, with its threat of punishment and promise of reward, introduces a nonmoral incentive to be moral that is absent in atheism (58).

Having such nonmoral, prudential reasons to be moral "appears to undermine morality rather than support it," writes Baggini. "Acting morally because it is in one's own best interest to do so does not seem to be acting morally at all" (63).

I believe that most Christians are not psychopaths. Their moral sense is as strong as mine or any atheist's. But Christians are being indoctrinated into accepting a psychopathic philosophy of morality, according to which the only reason they have to do what they know is right is that God has commanded them to. That, combined with atrophied or non-existent critical thinking skills, can produce psychopathic behavior.

If there is one thing that disgusts me these days, it's theists who complain that they are oppressed and yet attack atheists with pseudo-intellectual garbage. Archbold doesn't know the first thing about philosophical groundings. He should leave the philosophy to the experts.

Update. Denying that morality is grounded in religion does not entail that God does not exist. God, rather than being the creator of morality, would instead be an infallible detector or discoverer of it. Even though I am an atheist, I have not argued for atheism here. Even theists can therefore endorse my objections to Archbold's amateurish post.

Catholics can shovel it just as well as anyone else

One of my Facebook friends posted this blog post from the National Catholic Register by Matthew Archbold. Archbold quotes, at length, this interview at the New York Times with former Planned Parenthood head Gloria Feldt. (And it is important that Archbold frame his post for his Catholic audience by associating Feldt with Planned Parenthood, naturally.) Regarding women who "flee the work force," Feldt states:

They make it harder for the rest of us to remedy the inequities that remain. We have to make young women aware of how their choices affect other women. It should be acceptable criticism to point out that, although everyone has the right to make their own life decisions, choosing to “opt out” reinforces stereotypes about women’s priorities that we’ve been working for decades to shatter, so just cut it out. And, the “individual choice” women have to become stay-at-home moms becomes precarious when they try to return to the workplace and find their earning power and options reduced. If we could see child-rearing as a necessary task and not an identity, and if we could collectively recognize that facilitating it benefits us all, we would go much further in guaranteeing women’s choices than we do when we are expected to uncritically celebrate every individual’s decisions.

Now, Feldt makes some valid points here. It is certainly true that women who return to the workforce after bearing children will not earn as much or have as many options as women who make different choices, and it is in every woman's interest to be aware of this fact when they deliberate about having children. And Feldt does clearly state that "everyone has the right to make their own life decisions."

Archbold, of course, wants to portray Feldt as some kind of monster:

So let’s get this straight, the former head of Planned Parenthood is telling women to STOP being so selfish and think of someone other than themselves and their kids? Seriously?

In short, she wants you to think of Gloria Feldt’s feelings rather than your kids.

If you thought feminism was all about giving women choices, well it turns out you were wrong. Feminism is about doing what Gloria Feldt wants you to do.

So now it looks like the Planned Parenthood folks are not only doing their best to to make sure women don’t have children but now they’re saying that if you do mistakenly have children you should at least be 21st century enough not to take care of them.

Read those four paragraphs again, carefully. Does Archbold make a single true assertion in any of them? No:

• Feldt would like women to think not only of their own kids but also other women. (Since when is thinking of others a bad thing?) 
• Feldt is not saying that women ought to think about Feldt's feelings. 
• Feminism is not about doing what Feldt wants us to do. 
• And Feldt is not saying that people shouldn't take care of their children. She is saying that child-rearing is a necessary task the facilitation of which would benefit us all, is she not?

Archbold, are you a freaking idiot, or are you just irresponsible? What is your problem?

Archbold's assertions are not only false, they are laughably absurd. Think about it: why on earth would anyone actually demand that you not take care of your own kids? If you're willing to believe that feminists want us to neglect our children, then you already believe that feminists are monsters. Do we really have to assure everyone that they're not? Sure, there may be feminists here and there who actually believe that children ought to be neglected (and surely there are a few conservatives out there who agree with them), but are they typical of feminists in general? From the fact that the Catholic Church has been crawling with pedophile priests, I could just as easily infer that Catholics love to molest children, couldn't I? Why does Archbold enjoy sexually assaulting children? I might ask.

No one in Archbold's audience will take issue with anything he says. But it's obvious that Archbold is dealing not with feminism but a caricature of feminism, a straw man. Archbold takes the comments of one feminist, distorts them, and then claims that the distorted version is typical of feminism in general.

Hey, Archbold: I'm a feminist, and you don't have a fucking clue what we stand for.

Such are the products of bullshitters. Catholics can shovel it just as well as anyone else, can't they?

Update: I wish to thank Feldt for posting a link to this analysis. I'm happy to help.