Matt Slick: Merely for Your Personal Pleasure

It is always wrong for you to torture babies merely for your personal pleasure.

Matt Slick has developed this proposition over the years to support his claim of “absolute morals”. As he states in the link:

“If it is always wrong, then that supports a universal moral absolute. But how is it possible in a worldview that contains no God and/or does not allow universal moral truths?

So let’s respond to the “If it is” and the “If it is not” as Slick explains at his carm.org website:

“If it is always wrong (to torture babies to death for personal pleasure), then that supports a universal moral absolute. But how is it possible in a worldview that contains no God and/or does not allow universal moral truths?”

Incoherent/does not follow. A well-known Atheist Community Youtube commenter expresses this very well: “If you have to use a very specific example ‘raping babies for mere pleasure’ in order to demonstrate an objective moral standard, the moral standard can't be very objective (at least not in the transcendent, god given morals, kind of way ).” (Shaar roambeams , YT comment on BTWN Show, 8/7/2016)

Reductio Ad Absurdum. Slick is attempting to find something he can claim is universal in that no one can deny it, but in doing so, raises its specificity to an absurdity The immediate question arising is: who would EVER torture babies to death “merely for personal pleasure”?  It is the specifier, the "merely for personal pleasure" clause, which takes the proposition to this level.

At his carm.org website, Slick tries to extend this appeal-to-emotion-framed statement to a table of “objective" wrongs:

Notice that they are set up in a table which perfectly reflects the false dilemmas he sets up.  He starts with a universal ("always") in the first column, with another universal (for "anyone/everyone") then to the act, and then obscures it with the emotionally-infected false choice "specifier".  The second proposition about mothers is obviously a thinly-veiled reference to abortion.  The choices make these propositions, again, something that would only be done by a sociopath, someone mentally ill, because of the "personal pleasure" phrasing.    The appeal to emotion "specifier" in the last column is meant to remove any compelling rational reason for an exception, but also renders it almost impossibly uncommon (reduces it to an absurdity).

Straw man/Reification. Where does it say that an atheist worldview cannot allow universal moral truths? Matt’s insinuation is that only a theist worldview can support them, I’m assuming because it has a ”morality giver” (which of course is his version of god). In other words, universal moral laws require having a “law giver.”

Altruism and empathy can be used to develop objective, universal moral truths in both a theistic and secular world.  Five of them will be discussed later in this post.

Divine Command Theory. Slick tries to get around the DCT quandary in various ways, but it always comes back to the fact that any act his god would command him to perform is morally permissible. This is expressed well in a Personal Challenge by Raymond Bradley in his book “God’s Gravediggers: Why No Diety Exists”—

Consider First Samuel 15:3 in which the Lord commands his people: “Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him: but put to death both man and woman, child and infant."

Now ask yourself three questions:

(i) Was "put to death both man and woman, child and Infant" the very word of the Lord whom you believe and worship?

(ii) Is it conceivable that your Lord could again issue the same command in our time?

(iii) If you did believe you were so commanded by your Lord, could you and would you obey?

If you answer "No" to question (i), you deny the authority of God's so-called word, the Bible. If you answer "No" to question (ii) (perhaps because you think your Lord might have mended his ways), then you deny that God's commands have the kind of universal applicability which is a necessary condition of their being in accord with, let alone the source of, moral truths [Note from Karen: you also deny that God is “changeless” as defined by the Westminster Confessional definition of God]. If you answer "No" to question (iii), you must think that it is sometimes right, or even obligatory, to disobey God. You thereby admit that moral truths are independent of, and may even conflict with, God's dictates. You admit that, as most philosophers since Socrates have long insisted, ethics is autonomous; and that we must, therefore, do our moral thinking for ourselves. But if you answer "Yes" to each question, then I submit that your belief in the God of biblical theism is not just mistaken but morally abhorrent.

My Answer to Slick
Torturing babies “merely for personal pleasure” is an appeal to emotion that entails that one enjoys giving pain, which is sadism.  Sexual sadism disorder is the “medical/psychological condition for sexual arousal [i.e., personal pleasure] from inflicting pain/humiliation on unwilling, non-consenting victims.” Babies are by definition “unwilling, non-consenting victims.” So it’s not wrong as indicative of someone who has a psychological disorder who needs to be helped (i.e., with empathy, altruism). The person who is “deriving personal pleasure” may not think it is wrong, because they have a psychological problem—they are “sick” from a mental condition which requires treatment.

Matt Slick's TAG Conclusion: FIVE Counter Arguments

In the YouTube video finale on a joint "TAG-team" effort with my good friend and fellow YouTuber Deconverted Man, at analyzing Matt Slick's Transcendental Argument for God straight from his carm.org website, I presented four counter-arguments to his conclusion. Here is Slick's beginning "simplifed summation" so as to understand the context of these counter-arguments:

The oversimplified argument, which is expanded in outline form below, goes as follows: The Laws of Logic exist. The Laws of Logic are conceptual by nature--are not dependent on space, time, physical properties, or human nature. They are not the product of the physical universe (space, time, matter) because if the physical universe were to disappear, The Laws of Logic would still be true. The Laws of Logic are not the product of human minds because human minds are different--not absolute. But, since The Laws of Logic are always true everywhere and not dependent upon human minds, it must be an absolute transcendent mind that is authoring them. This mind is called God. Furthermore, if there are only two options to account for something, i.e., God and no God, and one of them is negated, then by default the other position is validated. Therefore, part of the argument is that the atheist position cannot account for the existence of The Laws of Logic from its worldview.

There are fallacies run amuck in the above simplification as well, let's point out the major one that may not have been covered in our video series, and that's in Slick's disjunctive syllogism of "God or No-God." At issue is the term "God" which is by nature equivocal and multi-faceted: how is this "god" defined? In order to determine "everything else" we need to know what the opposite of "everything else" is, and that premise also needs to be validated.

But hold on!  Enter Alex Malpass, a post-graduate in philosophy who, in the FIFTH and probably most devastating counter argument to TAG, demonstrates that  the disjunctive syllogism Slick uses (shown in bold in the block quote from carm.org above) validates its own conclusion by positing the conclusion in the premise through the disjunctive syllogism, and hence is begging the question.  A simple way to show how it is begging the question might be this:

Premise 1:  God  ("conclusion") OR
Premise 2:  No God
Premise 3:  No god is negated
Conclusion:  God  (see Premise 1)

Therefore, the premise and the conclusion are one in the same.  It should also be pointed out that other educated philosophers, most notably Ozymandias Ramses, agree with Alex's objection to TAG.

YouTube channel "darkhorse" presented this easy-to-understand diagram in a recent video.

Alex recently explained all this (more comprehensively) to Matt Slick on the Biblethumpingwingnut podcast and YouTube hangout.  Slick seemed to think this was all a matter of "presentation" even though it effectively reduced his entire argument to, as Alex termed it, a "triviality."

Nevertheless, the following are the four basic responses (from the final video on TAG as published by Deconverted Man)  to Slick's final point that "since The Laws of Logic are always true everywhere and not dependent upon human minds, it must be an absolute transcendent mind that is authoring them. This mind is called God."

Argument for the Non-Existence of God (No. 4)

From Demand to Prove a Negative

P 1 )  The theist makes the demand that the non-theist prove that his or her deity of choice does not exist (when the non-theist asks for proof of their deity of choice's existence).

P 2 )  The theist is forced to shift the burden to the non-theist by this demand because he/she implicitly has neither any empirical proof nor a valid, cogent argument with positive reasons to demonstrate that their deity of choice exists.

Conclusion:   The theists' god therefore does not exist. 

[The non-theist might also ask the theist about the extent of their study/research into evidence of their god's existence, because if their study is quite broad, it gives them even less reason to make the demand, since their studies should allow them to be able to reasonably demonstrate their god's existence even if through logical argumentation.]


This argument is similar to the Argument for the Non-Existence of God (No. 1), but is more specific concerning the theists' method of argumentation (asking atheist to prove a negative).

Argument for the Non-Existence of God (No. 3)

From Objectivism

P 1 ) The primacy of existence maintains that existence (or "existents") exist (in a mind-independent reality). 

P 2 ) Consciousness cannot occur unless it has something (existents) to be conscious of, and so is secondary and subordinate to the primacy of existence.

P 3 ) The conscious only has this relationship and it is not possible for a conscious to create or otherwise change existents through only its conscious will (through only "thought").  A consciousness does not hold metaphysical primacy over reality.

P 4 ) "God" is ultimately defined in many religions as a consciousness with a "will."

Conclusion:  Since a consciousness does not hold metaphysical primacy over reality and it is not possible for a consciousness to create/change existents through "will" alone, such a god as defined cannot exist.*

*For more insight on the primacy of existence and the above argument, check out Dawson Bethrick's website/blog, Incinerating Presuppositionalism.

Argument for the Non-Existence of God (No. 2)

From Worship

P 1 - Worship ("systemic adoration in a religion") is an anthropomorphic tribal convention associated with humans, and is only narcissistic supply for a human's ego needs.

P 2 - A fully omnipotent, omniscient supernatural being would not require such worship since it is not human and should be absolutely secure and certain of its omnipotence/omniscience.

P 3 -  Many religious texts and doctrines, such as Judeo-Christian and Muslim, claim their god requires such worship.

Conclusion:  Since these gods should not require worship if they were indeed gods as described in  the religions' doctrine (omnipotent and omniscient), these gods do not exist.

Note:  A god not requiring worship (if omniscient/omnipotent) could therefore exist.

Argument for the Non-Existence of God (No. 1)

From TAG/Presuppositionalism

P 1 - Theist apologists have resorted to negative, burden-shifting argumentation by attacking the capacity and ability of their opponents to even argue by claiming their particular god "owns" that capacity and ability, i.e., the laws of logic, etc.

P 2 - Theist apologists have resorted to such argumentation because they inherently recognize that there is no evidence or compelling arguments to positively prove the existence of their god, or that there are no other positive reasons to believe in their chosen religion.

P 3 -  If any theist god existed, it would not need such negative argumentation in lieu of theists offering positive reasons to believe.

Conclusion:  Therefore, by the theists' own admission, their god must not exist.

The Properly Basic Beliefs

This list is a compilation from a video published a year or so ago by Ozymandias Ramses II.

When a presuppositionalist such as Matt Slick asks how your worldview accounts for logic and reason, your answer should be that you hold to these nine properly basic beliefs (there may be more, but these are the most basic ones).  These nine "beliefs" can be thought of as a ladder: as we go up the ladder (by number) the previous belief(s) may be required in order to use them. 

1) Existence of a mind-independent reality

2) The validity preserving character of logical deduction

3)  The reliability of induction

4)  Causation  (for which deduction and induction must be assumed)

5)  Concept of Truth

6)  Existence of other minds

7)  Reliability of perception  (senses)

8)  Reliability of memory  

9)  Concept of a unified sense or agent 

If you're asked how you ground them or account for them, your answer is simple:  you cannot defend them by pain of self-referential or performative inconsistency and circularity.  You are validating them in the very act of responding to the presuppositionalists' question.

And, if you note, the existence of a mind-independent reality precedes the validity preserving character of  logical deduction and reliability of induction.  In other words, you have to be aware of the reality around you in order to use logic.

Ozymandias offers the following explanation for why these beliefs are so foundational:

The presup could not learn or conceive of such a god (contemplate his attributes, or apprehend his nature, or correlate the words said about him with the Bible) without properly basic beliefs. With respect to scripture being divinely revealed truth, you can't read it without assuming there's a mind-independent reality. You must first assume your god is "out there"--you must presuppose other minds exist (those who wrote it, and your god). You assume your senses are reliable, that your view is veridical, as you read the text. You assume your memory is functioning (so you can trust you can remember the start of a sentence by the time you get to the end of it). You assume your inductive and deductive reasoning is working when you think about what you are reading, especially when you compare one verse with another and assess them. And when you speak of "the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit" operating within you, you are assuming another mind, you're assuming you exist, and you are an agent with a mind having that experience, and it goes beyond your mental state that some other entity causing something to happen to you, so you are assuming causation. You can't presuppose the above two propositions without presupposing properly basic beliefs. Causation is assumed the moment you decide to read the bible. You couldn't act without presupposing you exist.

What the theologians try to staple onto this list is the need for a god, but by virtue of Occam's Razor, a god is not necessary, and therefore NOT BASIC.