Monday, April 27, 2009

Morality and Piranhas

This video responds to a video by YouTube user Thunderf00t, entitled "Why do people laugh at Creationists? (part 29)"

In my video, I explain a few of the fundamental flaws in the argument that Thunderf00t uses. Thunderf00t argues that piranhas are vicious killing machines, but they do not (generally) attack each other. Thunderf00t asserts that piranhas do not believe in God, but they do not do whatever they want to do.

I observe that Thunderf00t is unable to enter the psyche of fish to determine whether (in fact) they believe in God. I also note that Thunderf00t is unable to enter the psyche of fish to determine whether (in fact) they do not do whatever they want to do. In short, I note that Thunderf00t's entire set of premises relative to his argument are based on his own untestable assumptions regarding the psyche of fish.

From there, we turn to an investigation of his attempted application to human beings. We note that he claims that the same purely naturalistic mechanism that gives fish a code of morality also gives human beings a morality.

However, we note that we can get inside the human psyche and discover that, in general, human beings do believe in a divine law-giver and do intuitively understand that principles of right and wrong imply absolute and transcendent standards of right and wrong. Thus, if fish operate as humans do, we would expect to find that they too believe in God, in divine morality, and so forth. In short, Thunderf00t's hypothesis of sameness between fish and humans actually undermines his argument.

Finally, we conclude that Thunderf00t's argument is just another irrational attempt to deny that the moral law, written in the consciences even of atheists, comes from the moral law giver. While Thunderf00t attempts to go ad hominem on Ravi Zacharias, he has no cogent argument for morality being produced through purely natural mechanisms.



Enjoy!

-TurretinFan

7 comments:

brigand said...

His own presuppositions continue to fall apart at the seams, especially when he makes errors in the facts to conform to his own presuppositions:

"... if an individual piranha is caught on a hook or line, it may be attacked by other (free) piranhas."

"If underfed, piranhas are likely to become cannibalistic on others in their group."

These natural moral mechanisms are great, if you want a sure-fire way to destroy the fabric of society.

He himself does not behave in a way that conforms to his own stated basis. Inconsistency and irrationality abound here.

Anonymous said...

Well, permit a bit of levity then?

There was a Creationist "bear" hunter walking along a dirt road one day hunting grizzly bears.

He was praying to God that he really enjoyed God "always" answering his prayers.

All of a sudden off in the distance is this grizzly bear charging him at a very very rapid pace.

This man, falling on his knees with his head bowed down touching the dirt road, cries out to God: "God, make this atheistic grizzly bear Christian"!

The next thing the man hears is this grizzly bear praying: "Oh thank you God for this meal I am about to eat"! :)

The Squirrel said...

TurretinFan:

I think "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures."
(Romans 1:22-23)

just about says it all!

Good post, and I really do love the graphics work on your videos.

~Squirrel

Turretinfan said...

In general, the graphics work is Matthew Lankford, although the particular piranha graphic is a drawing from an 150 year old book.

-TurretinFan

Anonymous said...

Well, here's another one if you please? Just a bit of fun now. This time it is about God and His "mercy" for a deed done.

There was an atheist man who went out and murdered another man. The murderer was quite wealthy.

During the trial one of his confidants came to him and said that one of the jurors could be bought. He asked why? Well, it seems 11 of them are Christians. This one man is old and dumb and has a real stubborn streak and likes to drink, so he probably isn't God fearing.

Ok says the murderer, buy him off for me.

The confidante goes to the old man at evening and offers him $50K to stick with the "man" slaugther charge.

During deliberations the foreman of the jury sends a note in to the Judge that they are helplessly deadlocked 11 to 1. The Judge calls the jurors in and gives them a prep talk and asks them to reach a unanimous verdict.

A week goes by and another note, "Judge, it is now 3 to 9 and we really are hung.

The Judge again calls them in and prep talks them to go back and try to reach a unanimous decision.

Another week and it is now 7 to 5.

Again the Judge calls them in and again they go out and finally in the next week they have a unanimous decision.

They find the man guilty of "man" slaugther.

After being sentenced to 15 years and as he is being led out of the court the convicted man sees the old man in the hallway and calls to him, "hey" thanks, how did you do it?

The old man said, oh, it was really really hard at first because it was 11 for acquittal and then me and your strange request! "Thanks", then he winks and nods!

They led the murderer away to pay for his crime!

Matthew said...

The caricature is by artist Angel Contreras of www.art4clowns.com

I simply did the animation. :-)

Anonymous said...

I appreciate your bringing in the fact that the atheist will try and smuggling in terminology that is foreign to them...vis-a-vis, Christian terminology to justify their argument(s). I point this out to the atheists that I run into when we engage in similar conversations over the atrocities that have been done in the name of religion.