Do We Need God to be Good?

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“Do we need God to be good?” by C.R. Hallpike.

C.R. Hallpike is an anthropologist who brings his scientific training to apologetics. In one way, this book covers the usual grounds of apologetics, but, in another, Hallpike raises the discussion up a notch by lucid writing and deep insights.

Hallpike starts with an examination of the human subject. As in his prior books, he takes the various determinists to task. His arguments against Skinner and Dawkins involve logic and willingness to point out the absurdity of their positions. In discussing the idea that humans are the subjects of memes, he writes:

“So how can we tell when memes are only mimicking the truth? As Blackmore has ruled out the operation of conscious reasoning as a means to attain truth, there can only be the mindless competition of the memes inside the ‘meme habitat' of our brains, and so there is no way left by which any objective notion of truth could be established, and this includes the theory of memetics itself. Indeed, if culture is simply this mindless competition of swarms of memes in our brains, without the intervention of consciousness and reason, there is simply no objective basis on which science and truth themselves could be established. Dennett's ‘universal acid' therefore dissolves the whole of science, with all other forms of truth, and instead of ‘a revolutionised world-view' merely leaves universal nonsense.”

Likewise:

“According to Dawkins, ‘Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain' (Dawkins 2006: 14). But ‘emerge' as used by Dawkins here is a mere word, with no more explanatory value than ‘Hey Presto' when used by a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.”

Clearly, Hallpike is an exceptional and feisty writer.

The core of Hallpike's understanding of human anthropology is that human beings are biologically disposed to be cooperative and sympathetic as a social matter, but those inclinations are not sufficient to answer all moral questions.

The end of Hallpike's development of ideas is that humanism and atheism lead to societies that are unusually prone to the degradation of human beings. Such societies have a confused understanding of human rights that ultimately becomes a matter of power politics. Groups can have group rights if they are politically powerful or useful. Animals can have rights, for example, but people might be denied rights is they are not old enough or are disabled. “Humanism” works insofar as it simply endorses already existing values of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (“WEIRD”) societies. Hallpike notes:

“Many peoples therefore regard the attempts by secular Western liberalism to make the whole world adopt its values, and especially human rights, as cultural arrogance. Humanism has no answer to religious ethics because, despite all its talk of reason and evidence and thinking for oneself its exponents make no attempt to provide a scholarly analysis of religion or ethics or evolutionary biology, but are happy to take the undemanding route of endorsing the fashionable values of modern Western liberalism.”

Hallpike examines various examples of godless values explicated in history and literature. Ayn Rand's Objectivism and B.F. Skinner's Behaviorism come under the microscope; the latter having all the charm of “Brave New World” despite its leftist, socialist patina.

Hallpike reasonably concludes that while atheists can be moral in the basic matters of murder and theft, participating in the cooperate and sympathetic nature of human beings, when it comes to fundamental principles, belief or lack of belief can have huge consequences. Hallpike writes:

“The real differences, however, would arise over what believers and unbelievers would regard as moral and immoral in the first place. (In what follows, I will take ‘believer' to mean ‘Christian', since I am not qualified to speak for other religions.) An atheist might very well be an Objectivist, for example, and would not consider risking his own life, or even serious discomfort, to save that of a stranger, and would be equally unwilling to perform unpaid public service, or go and help the poor in a Third World country, or in fact do anything that did not have a selfish motive. Forgiving one's enemies would be eccentric, and loving them unthinkable, while taking revenge on them would be very appealing. The distinction between spiritual and material values would be meaningless, and pride, selfishness, and general narcissism would seem perfectly natural, so that being a winner, social success, wealth, luxury and power would all be eminently desirable and worth struggling for at any cost, because life has no other meaning, whereas humility and self-denial would be morbid and ridiculous. In the same way it would be far more sensible to go with the crowd than to make oneself unpopular by standing up for some moral principle. Human life as such would have no special value, universal rights are a fantasy, and not only abortion and infanticide but the extermination of the old, sick, mentally retarded and no doubt other ‘burdens on society' would be perfectly justifiable as well. The atheist need have no particular concern with the poor, and could easily join Professor Nietzsche in regarding them as contemptible losers and natural inferiors, who are there to be exploited as a matter of course. Totalitarian states, particularly those driven by the belief in Reason and Planning, would also be quite acceptable, especially if the atheist could be employed as one of the planners or enforcers, and the use of terror and the extermination of the enemies of the state would be a rational policy, whereas being a martyr for one's beliefs or a conscientious objector would be absurd. Since there is no such thing as human dignity, techniques of mind control and physical torture for the purposes of the state would be quite acceptable. Warfare, especially between different ethnic groups, is perfectly natural, and the conquest or extermination of foreigners, especially to seize their natural resources like oil, would be a normal strategy of international relations.
We must be clear that ‘could' and ‘could not' here refer to principles, not to the actual behaviour of individuals. Of course, the atheist does not have to behave in any of these ways but there is nothing in atheism itself which prohibits them either. It would be perfectly possible for an atheist to jump into a river to save a stranger from drowning, but this could not be justified by his atheist principles but simply explained by the sort of person he was. On the other hand, plenty of Christians have committed appalling acts—perhaps we can think here of paedophile priests—but there is no way in which these could be justified by an appeal to Christian principles.”

This is an insightful and engaging work.