Dan Barker @ OU

Dan Barker spoke tonight at OU in Dale Hall. He was brought in by CFI. His lecture was titled “How to be good without God.” Here are some of the highlights and my brief responses:

-> “What we need and what we want is the basis of morality.”

This makes ethics arbitrary: our wants and needs can change. Also, he applied morality to animals and plants… how can this be done if it is defined by human wants and human needs? This seems arbitrary as well.

-> Good is the reduction of harm.

Why? Where does this definition come from? Also, defining harm seems to presuppose a definition of goodness. I don’t see how this isn’t viciously circular.

-> Sticking a needle in a baby is generally bad… unless we are doing so to give the baby a necessary or beneficial shot.

Basically, this is a greater good argument. Sticking a baby with a needle is bad unless it is done for the purpose of accomplishing a greater (or perhaps sufficient) good. If a person has a sufficiently good purpose that can be accomplished by something normally considered evil then it is justified… What then about the problem of evil? Can God have a sufficient reason for allowing/purposing evil to exist? When asked about this, Dan did not deny this possibility. I wonder how he can then continually bring up/mention/argue the problem of evil while admitting that a good, all-powerful God can create a world that will contain evil.

There were plenty more absurdities espoused by him tonight and certainly many more within all of his lectures and debates; however, these are the ones that most stuck out to me. I might post more later.

This Week

Quite a bit has happened to me over the past week. Right now I am near Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have been at a week-long conference. This valley I am in is beautiful. The speaker was amazing and I will likely be posting many of the things I have gleaned from him. I have gone hiking, played miniature golf, played French Cricket, played BANG!, and I have greatly enjoyed the fellowship of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Also, I have had a few discussions about Open Theism with a friend of mine. I will likely write a bit about that as well - though while writing about that I will likely borrow from my friends, Chris Krycho and Tim Graf (neither of which are Open Theists).

Also, in a discussion about con-substantiation, Tim suggested that our Lutheran friends be asked if “Christ can be in the bread and with the bread, but not under it.” In other words, what do they actually mean when they say that Christ is in, with, and under the bread?