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18 Responses to “ Does Atheism Lead To Cannibalism? ”

1. # 1 Autumn Harvest Says:
   August 21st, 2007 at 5:55 pm

   I am, as you already know, an atheist. I’m going to give a long-winded response, because I’m not totally sure what you’re getting at, so will try to answer your question at the multiple levels it can be interpreted as. Also, I’m most likely losing internet access soon, so will probably be unable to respond to responses, so will try to cover all my bases.

   At a practical level, there are many reasons not to make a meal of a person, or allow it as a social practice. A dead human carries many viruses that will be particularly virulent to other humans. To allow eating dead people would encourage hungry people to arrange “accidents” that would allow them to eat the dead body. And so on. But I assume you’re not asking about such things.

   Next, I would say that there is nothing intrinsically immoral about eating a dead human. The human is dead, and presumably doesn’t care what you do to his or her body.

   But I would qualify that, and say that in practice, in virtually any situation that I can imagine, it would be wrong to eat a dead human. The way human brains are hard-wired, it’s difficult for people to completely differentiate between the living person that they knew, and that person’s dead body. So eating a dead body in any culture that I’m familiar with is going to be viewed as a sign of seriously disturbing disrespect for the deceased. That’s not bad for the deceased, because, as I said earlier, presumably he or she doesn’t care now. But such severe disrespect will be incredibly upsetting to the dead person’s family and friends. Even if the person has no immediate family, the person choosing to eat a dead body is almost certainly trying to be disrespectful and aggressive in a way that indicates something messed up and disturbing about them. So in the context of any society that’s existed on earth, or virtually any society that I can imagine, cannibalism is wrong.

   If I try really hard, I can imagine a science-fiction society in which the loved ones of the deceased gathered around the person’s dead body and eat it, to respectfully celebrate his or her life, without any malice of any sort. I would find nothing wrong or disturbing about that, but I find it really difficult to imagine such a society, given the way people are hard-wired.

   So the short answers is that countenance of cannibalism is not a good idea practically, and in the context of virtually any realistic culture that I can imagine, cannibalism is morally wrong. However, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with cannibalism.

   As I side note, I don’t totally understand what you’re getting at, because I feel that my answers would be very similar if I believed in an afterlife. If I was dead, and looking down from heaven (or wherever. . .), and saw people eating my body, I would be upset if they were doing it out of malice or disrespect, as they almost certainly would be. But if they were doing it because they were starving, I wouldn’t be upset for myself, and if they were doing it in a manner that was intended to be respectful, I wouldn’t be upset at all.

2. # 2 Agkyra Says:
   August 21st, 2007 at 6:47 pm

   I understand. Sorry my original post was hopelessly vague. I added an update to clarify.

3. # 3 Autumn Harvest Says:
   August 21st, 2007 at 8:08 pm

   I’m still don’t see how this is a particularly atheist question. Do your Christian beliefs lead you to conclude that it’s always intrinsically wrong to eat a dead human? If so why? I know that you believe in some non-physical soul that I don’t, but that soul’ isn’t in the dead body anyway, so why does that matter?

4. # 4 Agkyra Says:
   August 21st, 2007 at 8:53 pm

   Scripture does forbid cannibalism (e.g., Leviticus 26:29) and associates it with both idolatry and famine in time of siege. It doesn’t have to do with the soul and body as much as the dignity of the human person as God’s image-bearer. Given that humans were created in God’s image and put in an ideal environment for them to flourish, cannibalism is perhaps the ultimate symbol of sin’s horrific consequences: people literally devouring each other.

   I would hope that the thought of cannibalism evoked a sense that humans are fundamentally different than beasts, and ought not to be eaten, whether we knew the person or not. A hamburger is no longer recognizable as cow-flesh, but I don’t object to eating it even though I know it was a cow. If someone were peddling man-kebabs, on the other hand, I hope we wouldn’t just chalk it up to acquired tastes. Atheism, in keeping with its lack of norms, cannot distinguish a distaste for human flesh from my wife’s distaste for sushi. At least the common materialistic variety of atheism cannot.

   That may not be a problem for you, but I hope it is for others.

5. # 5 Autumn Harvest Says:
   August 21st, 2007 at 9:58 pm

   Ah, now I see what you’re getting at.

   I disagree that you’ve shown that “Atheism, in keeping with its lack of norms, cannot distinguish a distate for human flesh from [your] wife’s distate for sushi.” I gave many reasons that “in the context of any society that’s existed on earth, or virtually any society that I can imagine, cannibalism is wrong,” and so have distinguished the two (note that I need the context of the society not because I’m engaging in moral relativism, but because that context is relevant for establishing emotional harm). Your may think atheists, if logical, should lack norms, but clearly I, like most atheists, do not lack norms. It’s just that my norms are different, and center on mental or physical harm to living human beings, so that the harms of cannibalism are through secondary effects, rather than primary ones. I think what you really should be concluding is not that atheism lacks norms, but that utilitarianism is (typically) only concerned with living human beings.

6. # 6 Autumn Harvest Says:
   August 21st, 2007 at 10:09 pm

   I know I’m writing a lot, but one more comment. Leviticus 26:29 does not appear to forbid cannibalism. It threatens that those who do not obey God “shall eat the flesh of your sons, and [] shall eat the flesh of [their] daughters.” It would certainly be a terrible punishment to have your children die, and be forced to eat them, regardless of whether eating a dead person was always wrong. So let me again ask what basis you, as a Christian, have for concluding that it’s always intrinsically wrong to eat a dead human?

7. # 7 Agkyra Says:
   August 22nd, 2007 at 3:53 am

   I think what you really should be concluding is not that atheism lacks norms …

   My position is more nuanced than that. Atheism is unable to provide a basis for absolute norms. Yes, atheists have norms — how could any human being not? — but those norms are parasitic on western atheists’ upbringing in modern western (i.e., Christian) culture. So the challenge for atheists is to provide a basis for absolute norms, i.e., something that goes beyond personal likes and dislikes. I don’t want to seem as though I’m shunting you off to a different topic, but my arguments about atheism and normativity are given in this post and ensuing discussion with Jewish Atheist.

   As an aside, I would really recommend that you read C. S. Lewis’ little book Mere Christianity if you haven’t already. It’s the Christian equivalent of Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian, and Lewis makes a more thorough argument from norms than I can on this blog. It can be comfortably read in an afternoon and makes enjoyable, but thought-provoking, reading.

   Now, back to your comments. Clearly there are cannibals and cultures that do, or have, practiced cannibalism, so is it really true, as you say, that “in the context of any society that’s existed on earth, or virtually any society that I can imagine, cannibalism is wrong”? And even if it happens to be the case that cannibalism is wrong by the standards of any particular culture, why ought that fact keep any particular person in that culture from experimenting with cannibalism, besides the obvious wish to keep out of trouble with the law and one’s neighbors? If cannibalism isn’t wrong, shouldn’t we at least start to move in the direction of accepting cannibalism? We can at least start to get used to the idea by acknowledging that, in theory, there’s nothing more intrinsically wrong with eating dead people than sushi or popcorn.

   So let me again ask what basis you, as a Christian, have for concluding that it’s always intrinsically wrong to eat a dead human?

   The reason Christians conclude that it’s always wrong to eat a human requires inferences from several passages of Scripture. We start with Genesis 1:29-30, which shows that the original pattern for human foodways was vegetarian. As I said earlier, it was an ideal environment for human flourishing. It’s not until Genesis 9:3 that God allows humans to eat beasts. My translation renders them as “moving things,” which, just to be clear, does not include humans (the Hebrew word is remes in case that’s meaningful to you). When we come to Israel, further restrictions are added (e.g., Leviticus 11). Only certain beasts may be eaten, not all, and all the different categories of beasts and insects are covered: beasts on land (Lev. 11:3-8), sea life (vv. 9-12), birds (vv. 13-19), and insects (vv. 20-23). When we come to the New Testament, the clean laws that imposed dietary restrictions on the Israelites are lifted (e.g., Acts 10:9-16). Nevertheless, cannibalism was never permitted by God in the first place (Genesis 9:3), so the lifting of the restrictions related to Israel doesn’t then make cannibalism permissible.

   I hope that helps. I’m going to try to go back to sleep. I’m a light sleeper, and a noise woke me up a little while ago. Thanks for giving me something interesting to do in the small hours!

8. # 8 Autumn Harvest Says:
   August 22nd, 2007 at 6:54 am

   I’m still not seeing that anything you’re saying is an indictment of atheism—or to the degree that it is, the cannibalism is a red herring. I had already skimmed the debate that you had with Jewish Atheist on norms, and while I would phrase some things differently, am in essential agreement with Jewish Atheist. But sure, if you think that atheists are logically unable to hold norms, then atheists cannot condemn cannibalism, but that’s because they can’t condemn anything, and your emphasis on cannibalism is a red herring. If you grant for the sake of argument that atheists are logically able to hold norms, then I don’t see that there’s a particularly atheist/theist/Christian divide on this. Let me ignore for now your specific references to Scripture, because I’m short on time, and refer to your statement

   It doesn’t have to do with the soul and body as much as the dignity of the human person as God’s image-bearer. Given that humans were created in God’s image and put in an ideal environment for them to flourish, cannibalism is perhaps the ultimate symbol of sin’s horrific consequences: people literally devouring each other.

   Again, if you grant for the sake of argument that atheists can hold norms, then those atheist norms always place humans front and center in importance, and so can make the same argument. A Kantian might say

   It doesn’t have anything to do with a soul, but the importance of the human individual. Given that humans persons cannot be used as an end for other means, cannibalism is perhaps the ultimate evil; people are literally used for food.

   I would reply that both you and the Kantian are confusing a dead body with the person that it used to be, but that’s a common confusion, not one peculiar to religious people. If you don’t grant that atheists can hold norms, then cannibalism is a red herring—you might just as well have said that atheists cannot oppose murder, rape, or genocide, and repeated the debate that you already had with Jewish Atheist.

   Anyway, losing internet access in a few minutes, so probably won’t be back for a few days. It’s been a pleasure.

9. # 9 Agkyra Says:
   August 22nd, 2007 at 8:56 am

   I hope you’ll check back when you get your internet access restored. I’m not trying to get the last word. If you want to continue the dialogue, I’ll be happy to.

   But sure, if you think that atheists are logically unable to hold norms, then atheists cannot condemn cannibalism, but that’s because they can’t condemn anything, and your emphasis on cannibalism is a red herring.

   I agree that the focus on cannibalism would be a red herring if we were talking about atheism and norms in the abstract, as in my conversation with Jewish Atheist. But we’re back to what I talked about in my first comment to you, that my ultimate aim is to see people become Christians. My purpose in bringing up cannibalism is to nudge some atheists (or more likely, agnostics) into realizing that there is a fundamental incoherence between their own deeply-held values and the worldview of materialism or naturalism. I’m not trying to lay out an argument why atheism cannot support absolute norms. Rather, I’m taking that for granted and saying, “Look here: there’s a cleavage between your atheism and your sense of absolute right and wrong. Which do you choose?”

   That atheists do, in fact, hold norms is good, even if it doesn’t cohere with their understanding of reality. You make a good point that there’s no principle difference between a Christian ethic against cannibalism and an atheist ethic against it, as those norms are actually held by real Christians and atheists. The ultimate question is whether atheism can support such norms. I affirm that it cannot, and the fact that atheists nevertheless hold to an anti-cannibalism norm is explained by their being a product of a culture with roots in Christian norms.

   But, as I say, my purpose in this post is to help atheists and agnostics become more aware of the tensions that exist between their understanding of reality and their personally held norms, which are also part of reality. In your earlier comment (#1), you conclude, “there is nothing intrinsically wrong with cannibalism.” Fair enough. You are thus far consistent in your atheism; the tension that I want to highlight doesn’t exist for you: a human carcass is, after all, just meat like any other. That’s why I suggested that atheism countenances cannibalism in the first place.

   I only hope that others will agree that there is something different about a human, such that one ought not to be eaten even if his remains are just like any other meat in terms of physical properties.

10. # 10 econ grad stud Says:
    August 22nd, 2007 at 9:24 am

    Materialistic atheists can always say “I think that’s wrong” or “That’s wrong to me” or even “That’s considered wrong in our society” but they can never honestly say “This is by its very nature wrong”.

    Objective Morality requires two things:
    1) There is purpose in the universe.
    2) This purpose applies to us.

    In materialism there is no basis for _objective_ morality. We are simply configurations of matter in a temporary universe. All materialist morality relies on empathy or self-interest.

    A non-empathetic atheist (but not a non-empathetic Christian) could view murder as alright because human life holds no special value.

    Christianity contains a basis for objective morality. We have an absolute authority (God) who has established the only imperative morality.

11. # 11 Autumn Harvest Says:
    August 24th, 2007 at 3:30 am

    I’m sorry, but I have to say that I think you are so not being honest about your focus on cannibalism. It is a red herring. If your only point is that “Atheists must countenance terrible belief X to be consistent,” is would have made much more sense for you to ask whether atheists countenance genocide. After all, we all agree that genocide is wrong in all circumstances, and then the discussion would have been much cleaner. If your point is simply that atheists cannot logically hold moral beliefs, why did you qualify your original statement with “I’m not talking about killing people to use as food, but if someone dies anyway, why not have a meal?”—the qualification that no killing was involved would be clearly irrelevant. It seems that really your real purpose was to pick an activity for which humans have a strong natural repugnance, but for which that repugnance is complicated to logically justify, particularly for utilitarians; then, when an atheist gave a complicated answer, you chose to incorrectly summarize it as “. . . as Autumn Harvest makes clear, [cannibalism is] not any big deal for atheists. But that’s very clearly not what I said.

    What’s frustrating here is that your descriptions of what I said don’t actually resemble what I actually said—they resemble what you wanted them to say, to show that atheists are unprincipled. Whether or not you think I can logically hold norms, you have to read my statements as if I held norms, and interpret them on the basis of my own (possibly unprincipled) moral system. I made clear in #1 that what’s wrong is harm to others, and that cannibalism is therefore only immoral or upsetting when it harms other or intends to harm others (which is almost all the time). I’m very clearly describing my norms, with a focus on physical and mental harm to others, so if cannibalism wasn’t intended a red herring, it made no sense for you to respond by saying “Ah, look, Autumn Harvest is one of the rare, honest atheists, who consistent with atheism, has no problem with cannibalism” (particularly when my analysis concluded that cannibalism was almost always wrong). If your point was truly that atheists can’t hold norms, the only logical response would have been “As an atheist, how can you have a problem with harm to others?”

    If you are unwilling to grant, even for the sake argument, that I can hold morals beliefs, there’s no point to discussing my analysis of cannibalism. I do, however, think discussing your analysis of cannibalism is still interesting. Unless you have other Scripture not yet cited, it seems clear that Christianity gives you no principled basis for condemning cannibalism. Despite your original claim that Scripture forbids cannibalism, you have still not shown any relevant verse. In #7, you gave a number of Biblical references, but what they boil down to is (1) God initially gave man all the plants and animals of the Earth to eat, neither specifically permitting nor forbidding the eating of other humans (2) The food rules that God has given have changed with time. This has no bearing whatsoever on whether it is OK to eat a human. As you point out, humans are different from other animals; so the fact that God at one point said that we could eat cows, but not pigs, is simply irrelevant to whether there are circumstances in which it would be OK to eat humans. And as I pointed out before, Leviticus 26:29 is also clearly irrelevant to this question. It appears that, rather than concluding from the Bible that cannibalism is wrong, you are starting with the assumption that cannibalism is wrong, and searching through the Bible for quotes that can be stretched or (mis)interpreted to conclude what you already wanted to conclude.

    Internet access is still patchy. I’ll be back at some point, though.

12. # 12 Agkyra Says:
    August 24th, 2007 at 8:48 am

    I’m sad to read this comment, Autumn Harvest, because I think we must be dramatically miscommunicating with each other. Let me see if I understand your concerns correctly:

    1. You think cannibalism is a red herring–but I have to ask, a red herring from the perspective of what discussion? Cannibalism is itself the topic, so it cannot be a red herring, unless you think that I secretly wanted to show that atheists cannot hold moral norms and just chose cannibalism to prove it. That was not my purpose with this post. I had just finished a lengthy discussion on that topic in an earlier post (see comment #7). Why don’t you believe me about what I explained my purpose to be in comment #9?

    2. You think I’m misrepresenting your position. This is where I think the real miscommunication has taken place. I see now that my update text, “I just put it out there as something to think about, but as Autumn Harvest makes it clear in a comment, that’s not really any big deal for atheists,” is really ambiguous. What do I mean by “no big deal,” and what does the “that’s” refer to in “that’s not really any big deal for atheists”? You read it as referring to the practice of cannibalism. What I meant the “that’s” to refer to was the whole topic; in other words, the topic is not really a dilemma for atheists at a practical level because atheists do, in fact, hold norms–and as I say, it wasn’t a post on the general topic of whether atheism can justify the holding of norms. So I was trying to accurately represent your position as you understand it: you don’t think this topic poses a real challenge to atheists on a practical level. I was not trying to insinuate that atheists in general, or you in particular, are indifferent about cannibalism. The whole point is that I know atheists are not indifferent about cannibalism, so as I said in comment #9, “my purpose in this post is to help atheists and agnostics become more aware of the tensions that exist between their understanding of reality and their personally held norms” with an overall evangelistic aim. I apologize that the update text is ambiguous. The hyperlink associated with your name leads to your comment, so anyone who cares about this topic will immediately have a chance to read your own statement of your position, regardless of how he interpreted the text of my update.

    It seems that really your real purpose was to pick an activity for which humans have a strong natural repugnance, but for which that repugnance is complicated to logically justify, particularly for utilitarians

    Yes, that’s right, but my purpose was not to trap atheists in an inconsistency (as though this were a game), but just to bring out the cleavage between atheist thought and practice as something to ponder.

    I’m very clearly describing my norms, with a focus on physical and mental harm to others, so if cannibalism wasn’t intended a red herring, it made no sense for you to respond by saying “Ah, look, Autumn Harvest is one of the rare, honest atheists, who consistent with atheism, has no problem with cannibalism” (particularly when my analysis concluded that cannibalism was almost always wrong). If your point was truly that atheists can’t hold norms, the only logical response would have been “As an atheist, how can you have a problem with harm to others?”

    I don’t want to quibble, but I think you’ve got it backwards. Precisely because cannibalism is the only topic in view, and because I was not trying to use it as a lead-in to a broader discussion of atheism and norms, I didn’t move to the broader topic. I accept that you hold norms and are opposed to cannibalism for practical reasons, but don’t believe it to be intrinsically wrong.

    Despite your original claim that Scripture forbids cannibalism, you have still not shown any relevant verse.

    Well, you’re right about one thing: I’ve haven’t shown a verse. Remember that I said, “The reason Christians conclude that it’s always wrong to eat a human requires inferences from several passages of Scripture.” (italics added).

    [W]hat they boil down to is (1) God initially gave man all the plants and animals of the Earth to eat, neither specifically permitting nor forbidding the eating of other humans

    No, you have misunderstood. God initially gave the plants, and later the animals. Re-read the paragraph I wrote in comment #7. At creation, it is quite clear that only the plants are given for food. Then, in Genesis 9, it is quite clear that only the animals are given for food. You seem to think that “neither specifically permitting nor forbidding the eating of other humans” means the Bible is silent on the matter, but that would betray a gross misunderstanding of how a narrative genre communicates norms. Think, for example, about Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (which my wife is now reading). Nowhere in that book does Ayn Rand, as the author, break in and say, “Now, readers, let me spell out for you the principles of Objectivist ethics.” In spite of that, one would have to be pretty thick-headed not to pick up on them or to assert that they’re not there. Or, to give an example from life, if a father says to his son, “Son, I don’t want you to smoke marijuana or use cocaine,” is the son justified in thinking he is then permitted to use PCP or LSD, since his father neither specifically permitted nor forbade it? Of course not.

    I do have a question for you, though, just out of curiosity. How can you assert that humans are hard-wired not to distinguish between a living person and a dead body (your comment #1) when there are real cannibal cultures in the world? Are the cannibals hard-wired differently? Perhaps it’s a matter of genes? If it’s merely a cultural difference, why shouldn’t we start moving in the direction of accepting cannibalism in our culture, as I suggested in comment #7? With a steady effort, I bet we could ensure that people 150 years from now could order USDA inspected man-steaks in restaurants. Why shouldn’t we start to push for that? The actual practice of cannibalism wouldn’t begin until it were culturally accepted–and the deceased and his family would have to consent to it (check the donor box on your driver’s license), so there would be no issue of being hurtful to anyone still living. And if it is purely biological, how do we know that 10% of the population aren’t closet cannibals (or closet would-be cannibals, at any rate)? Shouldn’t we acknowledge that if it’s purely biological, then they have no control over it and should be allowed to practice consensual cannibalism? Surely one congenital cannibal would be willing to let another congenital cannibal to eat him after he died. As an atheist, what answers can you give to these questions?

13. # 13 Autumn Harvest Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 12:47 pm

    Of course I agree that once can infer principles not explicitly stated in the text (although The Fountainhead is a strange example—Ayn Rand makes a point of explicitly stating every one of her principles hundreds of times!). My problem is that your inferences are unreasonable. Your multiple quotes and arguments boil down to “Since God explicitly stated that X and Y were permissible to eat, Z must be forbidden.” That’s not a logical deduction. As a side note, I’ll point out that under this argument, vitamin supplements, butter, milk, and honey should all be forbidden, since they are neither plants nor animals (you can certainly argue that later text shows that milk and honey are later allowed, but then it’s strange that the ban is lifted without comment). But more fundamentally, I’m not sure what to say except that this deduction is patently unreasonable, and that surely the burden is on you to explain why the statement that X ad Y are permissible allows you to deduce that Z is forbidden. If you came to my house for dinner, and I said “Help yourself to the salad. And we have plenty of lasagna,” I don’t think that you’d infer that the pie was forbidden.

    Your example with the father and son is telling, but not in the way you intend. Let’s leave aside the fact that the analogy is off, because the son is attempting to determine what is forbidden by comparing it to a list of other forbidden activities, and looking for similarities, while what you actually want to do is take a list of permitted activities, and deduce that everything not on the list is forbidden. If the father says “Don’t smoke marijuana or use cocaine,” what should the son think about the permissibility of using PCP, alcohol, vitamin supplements, or eating chicken? Purely from the statement, the son has no way of distinguishing these cases, or concluding anything about PCP or chicken. However, because the son presumably begins by thinking, before his father’s statement, that there is a class of illegal activities, established by American law, that are wrong, he can then read PCP as also forbidden. Or if the son begins with a moral code that mind-altering substances are inherently wrong, he can read PCP and alcohol as also forbidden. But in both cases, the forbiddenness comes from American law or the son’s moral code held before his father’s statement, not from the statement itself. Similarly, your analysis of cannibalism appears to not actually be based on the text of the Bible, but by reading into it the beliefs you already have about cannibalism. You’re assuming the cannibalism is wrong, and finding no contradiction in the Bible, concluding that cannibalism is forbidden. But what you should really be doing is attempting to falsify your beliefs, by assuming norms that support cannibalism in certain cases, and seeing if you reach a contradiction when reading the Bible.

    Regarding your questions about “hard-wiring,” I wonder if you are are proceeding from a mistaken understanding about how cannibalism has worked throughout history, which differs greatly from what you see in popular culture. First of all, it’s controversial among anthropologists how many of the reported cases of cannibalism are real, rather than libel from enemies of the alleged cannibals (Google “cannibalism William Arens”)—for example, cannibalism among the Fore of New Guinea, despite being the classic example, has never been seen first-hand by Western observers. And there are no even remotely documented cases of societies that regularly use humans as a major food source. Among societies that have practiced cannibalism as a regular socially sanctioned practice (i.e. not the desperation of starvation), it’s always a matter of ritually destroying your enemies. All societies treat the dead bodies of their loved ones with respect. There’s no society where people casually toss their dead grandmother into a garbage heap, or throw her in the cooking pot with the chicken stew. And at any rate, even if it is possible (which I seriously doubt) to, with great effort over the next 150 years, make cannibalism acceptable, why would we want to? This would take hundreds of years, certainly involve great mental trauma for society in the transition, and would serve no purpose. As I pointed out in #1, humans have too many human diseases to be a healthy food source. And since humans are at the top of the food chain, the gain in terms of the amount of food available is so incredibly tiny as to be pointless. So really, I don’t even understand why you think that I should be in favor of a transtion to a cannibalistic society.

    Anyway, I better get going. It’s been interesting.

14. # 14 Agkyra Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 2:30 pm

    Thanks for your thoughtful response. You make some good points, especially that my PCP and cocaine analogy proceeds from the understanding that drugs are already wrong. Similarly, your lasagna, salad, and pie analogy proceeds from the understanding that a pie on a dinner table is part of the dinner. And the whole conversation proceeds from the assumption that it’s possible for humans to look upon each other as food. It’s hard to find an analogy that doesn’t depend on prior assumptions about what is food and what’s not. Even your summary of my inferences (Since God explicitly stated that X and Y were permissible to eat, Z must be forbidden) assumes that there is such a thing (Z) that falls under the rubric of food such that it must be forbidden or is otherwise permitted.

    A better way to understand the passages in Genesis is in terms of speech-acts. When God gives the plants for food, and then the animals, it is not so much that he is giving permission to eat X and Y out of a logically prior set of foods {X, Y, Z}, but that he is defining food as X and Y. Z is not even in view. God’s giving it to them to eat is what constitutes it as food. Remember that this is a narrative, and God’s giving the plants as food takes place within the narrative context immediately after the creation of humankind. There is no prior experience with food or hunger. God has to tell them not just what they may eat but that they need to eat, and points them to what he has created in part for the purpose of their eating it. So, your characterization of my inferences as “Since God explicitly stated that X and Y were permissible to eat, Z must be forbidden” is not correct because it misses the thrust of the narrative by treating Z (humans) as though they’re recognized as potentially being food. Since the narrator himself is writing from a time in which it was permissible to eat animals, and from a culture in which cannibalism was not practiced, the Genesis 1 and Genesis 9 passages taken together very clearly envision a time in which only plants were permitted to be eaten. It goes without saying that humans were not.

    You have exposed me as someone who knows very little about cannibalism, so I won’t dispute your facts, and I would actually like to thank you for taking the trouble to find them and bring them to my attention. I also don’t actually want to persuade you to support cannibalism. I’ve enjoyed this talk even though we ended up going around and around about other things. I might post something about Ted Nugent soon as a related challenge to atheists to line up their work-a-day norms with their beliefs about ultimate reality.

15. # 15 W. E. Messamore Says:
    August 30th, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    While this may not have any direct bearing on the conversation you are having over the original question, I do want to throw this in the mix:

    One might argue that Christianity leads to cannibalism in a very direct way, in that Christ appears to command cannibalism. Early Christians were accused of cannibalism (among other things) because of the Lord’s Supper. I don’t know that I’m really trying to make any specific point with this other than to simply point it out as an item of interest to me regarding this topic.

    I also had to say this:

    “Soylent Green is people!”

16. # 16 Agkyra Says:
    August 31st, 2007 at 8:31 am

    Soylent Green! Hilarious! I haven’t heard that in so long.

17. # 17 Nelson Says:
    February 21st, 2010 at 2:07 am

    I detect the basis of this blog very disturbing.

    No one has ever raged a war, set someone on fire, beheaded someone, stone people to death in the street, sacrificed animals or humans, robbed, raped, and pillaged in the name of ATHEISM.

    All those things have been done in the name of Christianity.

    The photo you showed could very well be those Christians stoning people to death or burn someone at the stake because the vicitim tried to suggest that the world is not flat, but round.

    So many people claim to be Christians but how many really try to be like Christ.
    God actually teaches that pride is the worst sin. But yet that is exactly what drives religious conflicts today. Sad.

    Just my 2 cents.

18. # 18 Agkyra Says:
    February 21st, 2010 at 9:53 am

    Hi, Nelson. Thanks for your comment. I partly agree and partly disagree with what you’ve said. You’re right that no one has ever beheaded someone in the name of atheism, as far as I know: “In the name of NO-GOD and for the sake of NO-GOD’s glory, prepare to die!” I agree with you there. Atheists, of course, have done such things (or equivalent ways of killing people), even if not, strictly speaking, “in the name of” atheism.

    I disagree with you, however, about whether people have done that in the name of Christianity. Of course Christians have done such things, like atheists. In another similarity, when Christians have beheaded people or robbed someone, it also has not been “in the name of” Christianity: “in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to hand over all your money, lest I pull the trigger and ye perish!” No, I’m not aware of that ever happening.

    I think you haven’t grasped the important point I was trying to make, though. Both Christians and atheists have done lots of things that you and I would both agree are bad. We would certainly both agree that robbing and raping are bad, right? And we would certainly both agree that atheists and people who claim to be Christians have robbed and raped, right?

    The point I’m trying to make is that Christianity disapproves of such activities, and even more than that, Christians believe there is no escaping from the oversight and judgment of God. There shall be true and complete justice in the end. The basis of the absolute norms of right and wrong that make robbing and raping absolutely wrong no matter any of us think about it is the unchanging character of God himself, who stands over all of us.

    Atheism, on the other hand, has no basis for absolute norms of any kind whatsoever: the very meaning of right, wrong, and justice are relative to transient persons and history. Atheism doesn’t disapprove of anything. In what sense is raping or robbing “wrong” on an atheistic worldview? “You tellin’ me it’s wrong to rape and murder? Oh yeah, YOU AND WHAT ARMY?” Who’s talking now, sucker?” On an atheistic worldview, a person isn’t essentially different than an Oreo cookie. On an atheistic worldview, there is no right or wrong, only the power wielded by the last person standing.

    When Stalin murdered millions and millions of his people (”in the name of” an avowedly atheistic revolution), not only does atheism have nothing to say against that, it actually provides the moral justification for it by annihilating all absolute morality.

    That’s the point. Not which kind of person is raping or robbing–we all know that all people and all kinds of people do bad things. The questions are these: which person is living in a way consistent with his worldview; and, which worldview makes rightness, wrongness, and justice meaningful in the first place. The point is that atheism does not.

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