1. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55633 by antonio on July 11, 2007 at 7:04 pm

Wilson kept insisting on the question of what consistent standard may an atheist use to decide what is good.

The most hygienic answer to that question is to challenge its implied assumption that Christians have a standard for goodness that comes from the Bible.

While Christians *claim* to derive their morality from the Bible, in actuality THEY DO NOT. It is very easy to ask a series of uncomfortable questions in this direction. Why do you condemn slavery, if it is encouraged in the Old Testament? The answers typically appeal to the idea that there are correct and incorrect interpretations of Bible passages. But then: how does one judge what is a correct interpretation? How does one choose to trust one Bible scholar and not another? Certainly not by reading the Bible.

You may substitute your favorite Biblical outrage in place of slavery of course. It is typically safer to choose one from the New Testament to avoid the "Jesus canceled it" kind of answer.

[I was going to say that this is one of Dawkins' main arguments in his book, but I'm not sure now... I might be confounding ideas from Dennett's book.]