The Tired Old Christian Rapist Wife Beater Question Exposed

As you may have noticed, I’ve gotten somewhat bored of the stupidity of Christians. I've been spending much of my spare time climbing and reading about science (paricularly evolutionary and Geology). However, the weird ideas of a guy called Steve C over at Lee’s place have prompted me to write this. His position is a typical one. We feel moral obligations, therefore, these come from god, therefore god exists (his god to be specific – not Hindu or Greek gods, but his god). He dropped the classic when did you stop beating your wife question:

“Great. Just for the record, you don’t think there are any moral OUGHTS?
You don’t think we OUGHT not rape or torture people just for fun?
When is rape o.k. Billy? Tell me.
Just want to be sure.” Great. Just for the record, you don’t think there are any moral OUGHTS?
You don’t think we OUGHT not rape or torture people just for fun?
When is rape o.k. Billy? Tell me.
Just want to be sure.”

A bizarre question because all I said was

“That is an un argued for statement - evidence please.
Why do Christians capitalise OUGHT? What is OUGHT?”

In response to his empty statement that evolution can not generate “OUGHT”. Needless to say, he couldn’t defend his position – only make some more empty claims.

To give some background, like many Christians, he believes that there are unbendable moral laws that are external to us and independent of us. These are dependent on the nature of god (this raises the Euthyphro dilemma though) and that we somehow tune in to this.

Christians often use this question in debates to emotionally influence people. If someone claims that rape is not wrong in the absolute terms above, then the Christian tries to claim the moral high ground – look at the evil atheist, we all know rape is wrong, but he says its not.

If someone agrees that rape is wrong, the Christian then tries to claim victory – after all, there must be a law (of course, even if there was a law, that does not mean god provides it)


Of course, when one says rape is not “wrong”, all that is being stated is that we don’t believe it is wrong in the sense that there is a god who says it is wrong. It can be wrong culturally and biologically. Natural selection could be against rape and our sense of morality is a biological mechanism that prevents us acting in “immoral ways”. This would provide the appearance of a law, where in fact there is none (in the theistic sense). We can then say that rape is wrong in a biological sense that is enforced through a moral compass – the rudiments of which are found in other animals. This can be explained by reciprocal altruism and is reflected in teachings such as treat others like your self (which, incidentally, Confucius came up with over 500 years before “Jesus” did).

Christians don’t seem to like it though when you change things slightly to “is it ever right to kill babies or gays?” – two things god commands in the bible (Joshua, 6:16-17, Leviticus 20:13). This demonstrates that these so called immutable laws that the Christian claims we tap in to are in fact culturally relative and not absolute at all.

One final point, when a Christian appeals to such laws, ask him to show that it is not him imposing these laws on his “god” – that should be good for a laugh.

Oh, and for some strange reason Steve (who doesn't understand the term biological fitness) seems to think we should be able to see someones thoughts if there is no soul - I shit you not!