“Who’s More Moral?” Spitting Contests Always Strike Me as Weird and Sketchy

Somebody sent sent me this outtake from some online “debate” between an atheist and a theist of some flavor or other:

Such arguments never fail to impress me with how unimpressive they are, no matter which side is making them. The woolly ideas of what “moral” means, and the non-existent data about a) who “wins” the Superior Morality Game and b) what the sample populations are and c) where they come from and d) when? It’s all just a collection of imaginary data points that anybody can say anything about.

Christians who make such arguments are, I think, foolish because the most important exposition of their theology on this question–the book of Romans–goes out of its way to make clear that “there is none righteous” and that every. single. human. being. on. this. earth. who is engaged in such a competition is like a victim on a cancer ward arguing about who is the least terminal. It’s stupid theologically and it’s stupid on the basis of simple observation since Jesus himself has already told us that the Church is a field full of wheat and weeds, bad fish and good and b) that the world beyond the visible Church is going to contain non-Christian sheep who will learn to their own surprise that they were sheep who obeyed Christ without realizing it, just as there are lots of people in the Church who say “Lord! Lord!” and do not obey Jesus and who may well hear “I never knew you” from him on That Day. So the notion that “Christians” are morally superior to non-Christians per se is impossible to substantiate.

Likewise, the notion that non-Christians or materialists are always or even “mostly” going to always be the victors in the (deeply Christian in origin) morality play where the Unbelieving Outsider snubbed by the Righteous is judged to be the True Saint (a tradition that owes everything to the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Parable of the Two Son and many other sayings of Jesus, as well as the Hebrew prophets) is not always borne out in the observable data. Sometimes the non-believer or materialist is Nero, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, or Hitler and his victims are not 100% smirking Christian hypocrites but just, y’know, millions of Christians who not only get murdered as such but even do so with courage and charity. It turns out that some of the unbelievers in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats are goats who rejected Christ and did not “do the right thing anyway”. Such goats will learn too late that, “I would have not have raped that kid if I had known he was actually you, Lord!” will not cut any ice in the Great Assizes. Yes, it’s true that those who claimed to be Christian will face a harsher judgment if we sin mortally and do not repent. But it remains the case that, believer or not, there are Things We Can’t Not Know, as the great theologian Steve Martin showed when he pointed out the absurdity of trying to argue before the bench, “I forgot murder was a crime.”

That said, what I find most absurd about these spitting contests is that Atheist apologists are all taking for granted that their moral worldview is “natural” and “normal” and “obvious” when it is, in fact, enormously contingent on the Christian tree whose branch they are energetically sawing off as they sit on it.

The deepest irony of our time is that it is not neo-atheists (who largely take for granted as normative a deeply Christian moral framework of the universe that is by no means derivable from Science or Materialism) but apostate Nietzschean MAGA conservatives with a sentimental fondness for smells, bells, and a few tatters of Christian aesthetics who are really demonstrating what a truly non-Christian world is going to look like.

I hope those who imagine themselves to be “atheist” figure out quickly how massive a debt they owe to the gospel and figure out quickly that they will never keep the benefits of the superstructure without facing (and accepting) the claims of Jesus Christ who built it. Because it will not be the dabblers in trendy atheism, but the black, satanic enemies of the gospel in post-Christian Nietzschean conservative antichrist fascism who are going to really show you what a world without Christ looks like.

That is not to say I believe people should (or even can) accept Christ as Lord for the sake of the sociological benefits of a Christian worldview. I agree 100% with C.S. Lewis Uncle Screwtape on that score:

About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate. Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that “only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilisations”. You see the little rift? “Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.” That’s the game.

Benjamin Franklin once noted that, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Similarly, those who obsess over their health wind up as unhappy hypochondriacs, while those who focus on higher things–sunshine, fresh air, exercise, good food, sports with friends–wind up getting health as a side benefit.

It’s the same with Christ. Faith in Christ must be for the sake of Christ, not for the sake of something else or it’s a fraud. Morality, like health, is good. But if you focus on “being moral” as the highest thing you wind up unable to achieve even that, as the Self-Righteous MAGA antichrist cult are currently proving. That said, as Jesus himself put it:

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. (Mt 6:33)

When Christians put him first, the social sanity we are commanded to pursue (including the vast benefits of an American civilization the MAGA is destroying) will be added as well as a side benefit, not due to our being “more moral” than others, but because disciples of Jesus, no longer obsessed with getting credit for their superior morality, will be free to love again instead of trapped by fear of losing a stupid spitting contest.