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There are no holes in Quinns argument. Absent free will, morality can not exist and Dawkins thesis that religion is evil becomes a joke.

Well I agree with you there, jwalsh07. I think Quinn nailed Dawkins' hide to the barn door in this exchange. Still, I'm interested in hearing from edsheppa, to learn what he regards as a "hole" in Quinn's reasoning. He might have noticed something that you and I missed.

Thank you for writing!

There are no holes in Quinns argument. Absent free will, morality can not exist and Dawkins thesis that religion is evil becomes a joke.

Let's say that Dawkins' view makes everything deterministic ( after all, we area all ultimately a product of a collission of atoms. A group of atoms called Nazis just "happened" to attack a group of atoms called Jews ).

But, does the absurdity of the atheistic worldview mean that the Theistic worldview has no philosophical problems ?

Let me play a little devil's advocacy here ...

Doesn't belief in an Omniscient, Omnipotent God, make this same God the source of evil, and hence, deny the existence of free will ?

Consider :

1. It has always been true that I will sin tomorrow. (Assumption: Omnitemporality of Truth)

2. It is impossible that God should hold a false belief or fail to know any truth. (Assumption: Infallible Foreknowledge)

3. God has always believed that I will sin tomorrow. (From 1 and 2)

4. If God has always believed a certain thing, then it is not in anyone’s power to do anything which entails that God has not always believed that thing. (Assumption: Fixed Past)

5. It is not in my power to do anything that entails that God has not always believed that I will sin tomorrow. (From 3 and 4)

6. That I refrain from sinning tomorrow entails that God has not always believed that I will sin tomorrow. (Necessary truth and from 2; Principle of Transfer of Powerlessness)

7. Therefore, it is not in my power to refrain from sinning tomorrow. (From 5 and 6)

8. If I act freely when I sin tomorrow, then I also have it within my power to refrain from sinning. (Assumption of Libertarian Free Will)

9. Therefore, I do not act freely when I sin tomorrow.

I'd really like to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

This is very similar to the classic Armenian vs Calvinist debate which is still going on even as we speak.

I think "free will" is a subject that really hacks at the trunk of religion, in that it can potentially topple it but is very hard work to. Perhaps doing so is a bit ambitious for these blogs, but I would still like to make a point about it. Dawkins is not interested in free will because it is irrelevant from an atheist's point of view, and I will explain why by partitioning morality into two categories:

1) Morality for the sake of God
2) Secular morality

Most theists use both these, whereas atheists only the latter. Free will is necessary for the former category, since judgement and morality falls apart without it. However free will is irrelevant to secular morality, since this is a personal desire to be civilised and socially constructive - Why would we cease to do so on the day that we embrace determinism? Why should the accepting of our choices not being our own affect those choices?

Its just theists can't understand secular morality because they are so used to childishly associating morality to divine judgement.

(To me, morality PURELY for the sake of god is by definition a selfish act, since it acts only due to the will of god, and any personal desire to do good is, by definition, secular - since its not FOR god. )