From the imago Dei to God

1. It is not inappropriate to have a level of respect for human beings at least as great as what would be fitting for beings in the image and likeness of God.

2. If naturalism is true about humans and God does not exist, then it is inappropriate to have a level of respect for human being that is at least as great as what would be fitting for beings in the image and likeness of God.

3. So, either naturalism is false about humans or God exists (or both).

Regarding premise 1, think about how problematic it would be to say that someone like Mother Teresa had too much respect for her fellow human beings.

Regarding premise 2, naturalism tells us that innately we’re just an arrangement of atoms, and if we add to that that God doesn’t exist, then this arrangement of atoms doesn’t have a special God-directed significance, so it seems inappropriate to bestow on us the level of respect that a being in the image and likeness of God would have.

I think one can strengthen the argument to provide additional evidence for the existence of God. If God doesn’t exist, then the only plausible way that humans could deserve the imago Dei level of respect is if human beings have a deep and very valuable reality going far beyond the neural networks in our brains, a reality that intrinsically calls for that very high level of respect. (If there is a God, then we don’t need quite as much intrinsic value for us to be worthy of that kind of respect, because we could derive value from our relation to the infinite God.) This is much more than ordinary non-naturalisms about consciousness give.

We thus learn from considerations of respect that if there is no God, humans need to be very non-natural in a god-like way. And beings like that are very hard to explain apart from God. So if we are beings like, this provides significant evidence for theism.

Elections question

Stalin and Mother Teresa are running for Prime Minister of Canada. Stalin has a well-publicized plan to murder all the Ukrainians, of whom there are a million. Moreover, his economic policies are stupid, resulting in the impoverishment of the middle class, and no improvement for the needy. Mother Teresa is not only virtuous, but also extremely well-informed about economics, and has policies that promise great economic improvement for the needy, and no loss for the rich. So far, the choice seems easy. The night before the elections, an omniscient and perfectly truthful being tells you—and you know that this is true—that if Stalin is elected, he will succeed in all his plans—a million Ukrainians will be murdered, and the economy will be destroyed. But the being also tells you that if Mother Teresa is elected, earthquakes will destroy Toronto and Montreal, directly killing two million people, and despite Mother Teresa doing the best that can be done, the country will be plunged into an economic depression, whose net effect is the same as that of Stalin's economic policies. If Stalin is elected, the earthquake will happen in an uninhabited area (maybe the military parades will redistribute the geological stress). Oh, and neither Mother Teresa, nor Stalin, nor anybody other than you knows about the earthquake issue--and nobody will believe you if tell them.

The results of electing Stalin are, thus, better than of electing Mother Teresa: a million die, while on Mother Teresa's watch, two million die. Whom should you vote for?

I am not claiming that this has any significant resemblance to the upcoming Canadian or U.S. or other elections.

[Edited: Added lack of others' knowledge of earthquake condition. Also, fixed a typo.]