Answering Tovia Singer: Did God Create Evil?

In page 395 of his study guide, Let's Get Biblical, Tovia Singer answers a question about the Rabbinic doctrine of Satan. The questioner asks how a God who is good and holy can possibly be the author of evil, not just in the sense of allowing for evil to exist, but in the sense that God actively creates evil.

Singer responds that God placed both good and evil into the world. He cites two verses the first is Deuteronomy 30:15 which states:

"See, I [God] have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil."

The second is Isaiah 45:7 which states:

"I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things."

Singer then goes on to attack Christian doctrine.

The two verses, Isaiah 45:7 and Deuteronomy 30:15, however, pose a serious theological problem for Christians who maintain that God did not create Satan, the angel of evil. According to Christian doctrine, as you suggest in your question, Satan was the highest-ranking angel who, through is own act of spiritual defiance and outright disobedience, became the chief adversary and slanderer of God and the embodiment of evil in this world. In Christian theology God never created evil; He is only the author of righteousness and perfection, as you maintained in your question. Therefore, God could never create something as sinister as the devil himself. Rather, Satan's unyielding wickedness is the result of his own spiritual rebellion.

Singer then compares the Christian view of good and evil to the dualism of Zoroastrianism, where the God Ahura Mazda has two equal manifestations, Spenta (good) and Angra (evil). Singer then states that angel means "messenger," and that no angel in the Tanakh ever opposes God's will, Satan included.

Singer then mentions the book of Job, where Satan appears before God to test the faithfulness of Job. God allows Satan to do so as long as the latter does not kill Job. According to Singer "Satan obediently follows his Creator's instructions" a statement which implies that God actually ordered Satan to torment Job, rather than giving Satan permission. Then Singer states:

Still, by the end of this unparalleled biblical narrative, Job's virtue prevails over Satan's unyielding torment. While in Christian terms Job's personal spiritual triumph is a theological impossibility, in Jewish terms it stands out as the embodiment of God's salvation program for mankind.

Singer then goes on to attack the NIV translation as a skewed understanding that conceals Isaiah's original message in order to preserve a Christian doctrine that contradicts what the Jewish scriptures so clearly teach.

I have to give Rabbi Singer points for rhetoric. When read by an average individual, his argument implies that the NIV translators deliberately mistranslated Isaiah 45, that Deuteronomy 30:15 states that God actively creates evil (and therefore we have two passages to support the claim instead of merely one verse), that the King James translates Isaiah 45:7 as moral evil, and that God actively ordered Satan to torment Job. When pressed by an apologist on these claims, Singer can rightly say that he never explicitly stated any of them. Pretty clever, huh?

First off, a little background about the book of Job. Christian theology does not state that God and Satan are in any way equals or counterparts. All angels, including Satan, are inferior created beings who are as helpless to resist God's omnipotence as we are. This is why Satan has to ask permission in order to torment God's servant Job.

The narrative then continues where Satan destroys Job's entire estate, kills his family, and if that was not enough, inflicts plagues and illnesses upon the poor man. Job's friends try to comfort him by offering Job a theodicy, an explanation as to why a good God is allowing Job to suffer.

After Job continues to complain, God finally appears, rebukes Job and his friends, and then tells Job that God does not owe anyone an explanation to why they suffer. We do not have God's vast perspective and extraordinary knowledge. We were not there at the creation of the world. We are weak, short-lived creatures who may not even be able to comprehend God's reasons for his actions.

The focus of Job is the problem of evil. The fact that we have no explanation for why a good God allows evil to exist and may never have such an explanation does not in any way indicate that there is no explanation.

God does restore Job's fortunes at the end of the book, but there is no indication that this is a reward for Job's faithfulness. In fact, it probably isn't, considering what Job says at the beginning of the chapter:

“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
(Job 42:2-6)

In Deuteronomy 30:15, the text seems to indicate that Israel is given two options: be faithful, loyal and good, and you will have life and prosperity. Be apostate, disloyal and evil, and you will have death and ruin. Where is the indication that God actively created evil? I can't find any, but maybe Tovia is drawing his ideas from the Rabbinic tradition. What does said tradition say about this verse?

R'Yochanan said of this verse: From the day that God made this declaration, goodness and evil did not emanate from His mouth; rather, evil comes of its own accord to one who does evil, and good comes to one who does good.

What about Isaiah 45:7 where God states that he creates evil? The word "evil" has more than one meaning, and those alternate (non-moral) meanings were in greater use during the time that the King James Bible was written. I was curious which definition of evil Tovia meant in this context. Here are five definitions of evil I found in the dictionary.

1. that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
2. the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
3. the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
4. harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
5. anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.

Is this talking about evil in a moral sense, or in one of the non-moral senses? Let's look at the Hebrew to see if it helps us:

יֹוצֵר אֹור וּבֹורֵא חֹשֶׁךְ
עֹשֶׂה שָׁלֹום וּבֹורֵא רָע
אֲנִי יְהוָה עֹשֶׂה כָל־אֵלֶּה

Forming light and creating darkness
establishing peace and creating ra,
I, the LORD create all these

The word in question is: רָע (ra, Strong's H7451) which can mean bad, evil, distress, misery, injury, or calamity. Basically, it's the same as our English word "bad" and carries a lot of the same meanings. Which meaning? Let's look at the context. The verse features two parallel lines, each line comparing two opposite ideas. God creates light, and its opposite, darkness. God establishes peace, and its opposite, chaos.

The next question is: is this just my interpretation, or is there Rabbinic support of this? I found one comment from Redak in the Judaica Press Tanach, who stated that in this context, רָע means "the opposite of peace, war with Babylon." Redak seems to indicate that this isn't a statement that God creates moral evil, but a statement that God creates peace and breaks peace, or that he both calms and agitates.

Oh, I almost forgot. Singer complains that some Christians believe Isaiah 14:12 is about Satan. I will admit that the oracle delivered by Isaiah is addressed to Nebuchadnezzar, but there is one part of this oracle that seems different:

How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
(Isaiah 14:12-15)

I'm not sure if you can apply this to Nebuchadnezzar. What pagan king, after all, tried to supplant God's rule over heaven, only to fall from it?

Answering Tovia Singer: An Introduction

Today, we begin our answering the anti-missionaries series. I intend to focus on specific anti-missionaries, give their backgrounds, and show you their arguments and rhetorical tricks, so that you can better debate them.

Perhaps the most famous anti-missionary is Tovia Singer. He is a charming and charismatic speaker, sort of the Rabbinic version of Ahmed Deedat. Neither is much of a scholar, but both are fantastic showmen, able to stir up crowds with their golden-tongued rhetoric.

I heard from a Messianic Rabbi who apparently was a long-time friend of Rabbi Singer, that Singer at one point in his life almost became a Messianic Jew. After rejecting this option, its seems that Singer decided to pursue a career to keep his fellow Jews away from Jesus at any cost. He is now the director of Outreach Judasim. He has his own radio show in Israel and his own tape series and study companion, both titled Let's Get Biblical.

As Michael Flanigan gives in his testimonial for Singer's book: "Check all the references to Strong's Driver and Briggs, or any other resource you have." I couldn't agree more. Two resources I recommend for a more in-depth study are biblos.com which has the Bible in almost every conceivable language, interlinear versions, and Strong's numbers for further research. The other is the Blue Letter Bible, which gives you access to word study tools. Both are completely free, and don't even require you to register!

In fact, I recommend that every Biblical apologist go through Singer's material with a Bible study group. Nearly all the apologetics disasters come from Lone Ranger apologists.

That said, go slowly through Singer's tapes and his study guide and thoroughly research answers to his objections. This will take a lot of time, a matter of years. Be patient and keep plugging along, because if you can finish this monstrous series, you will be prepared to obliterate almost any Biblical skeptic in debate.

For the rest of you who do not want to engage in such a humongous chore, you can just cheat. James Trimm has released an audio series with a lot of the answers to Singer's objections in his Let's Get Truthful audio series. Michael Brown has also released his own audio series called Countering the Counter-Missionaries. He also gives even more detailed responses in his five volume book series Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus.

My series will not attempt to provide any sort of an exhaustive answer to Tovia Singer's objections, which may at first glance seem overpowering, but take heart. Singer is a powerful speaker, but a weak Biblical scholar who makes a lot of basic errors. I intend to not only expose some of his errors but I also intend to bring something unique to the table: an explanation of how Tovia uses his rhetorical skills to make a relatively weak argument sound much, much stronger than it actually is. So yes, Tovia. Let's get Biblical.

Abusing Sources: Tovia Singer on Biblical Hebrew

On my list of least favorite anti-missionaries, I think Tovia Singer ranks #1, at least right now. The guy has a charming personality and is a great speaker, no doubt. But he also reminds me a lot of a used car salesman. He will butter you up, tell funny stories, and get you to like him. If you are a Jew, he is out to get you by hook or by crook.

One of Tovia's favorite tricks is his arbitrary use of translations. If the English helps his case, he will us that. He will say something like, "The King James Bible, which is not the slightest bit sympathetic to Judaism, says such and such." When the Hebrew is more convenient, he uses the Hebrew. Generally, he prefaces it with "You don't read Hebrew very well, do you?"

What's worse is when he uses the fact that he knows Hebrew and his audience does not, so that he can give a sort of argument from authority. Here is an example:

In his answers to audience questions section of his book: Let's Get Biblical (page 283), Singer responds to a question regarding Isaiah 53:10. The questioner asks about the phrase: "his days will be prolonged" and wonders why this phrase cannot apply to Jesus. Since Jesus was raised from the dead into an immortal body, and is technically still incarnate (as he will be when he returns), he has been alive as a human for about 2000 years. Were his days not prolonged?

After bellyaching about Christian misinterpretation of the Psalm which represents Israel, and after mentioning that the Hebrew word זָ֫רַע (zera, Strong's 2233) means only literal children and never metaphorical children, such as in Isaiah 57:4:
"Are you not children of transgression,
the seed [ זָ֫רַע (zera)] of deceit," (oops)

and of course before his attack on Nicaea and the divinity of Jesus, there is a paragraph where he gives a response to the question that is actually being asked!

This response, however, does little to relieve their problem. To begin with, the Hebrew words יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים (ya'arich yamim), meaning "long life" in this verse do not mean or refer to an eternal life which has no end, but rather a lengthening of days which eventually come to an end. These Hebrew words are therefore never applied in Tanach to anyone who is to live forever. In fact, the words ya'arich yamim appear in a number of places throughout the Jewish scriptures, including Deuteronomy 17:20, Deuteronomy 25:15, Proverbs 28:16, and Ecclesiastes 8:13. In each and every verse where this phrase appears, these words refer to an extended mortal life, not an eternal one. When the Jewish scriptures speak of an eternal resurrected life, as in Daniel 12:2, the Hebrew words לְחַיֵּי עֹולָם (l'chayai olam) are used.

This is a butchery of grammar. The term יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים (ya'arich yamim) does not mean long life, as the word יַאֲרִיךְ (ya'arich) is not an adjective. It is the imperfect tense or prefixed conjugation of the verb אָרַך (arach, Strong's 748). So the term יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים (ya'arich yamim) does not mean "long life" but "will prolong [his/her/its] days." It means exactly the same thing in Hebrew as it does in English. It means that the days will be made longer. How much longer? Generally, when the term is used in English it refers to a lengthening of days which eventually come to an end. It is very rarely the term we use in English to mean "make someone live forever." Generally we use the term "give eternal life" or perhaps "immortalize" to mean that.

When someone has an extra year to live, we say their life has been prolonged. When someone has an extra ten years to live, we say their life has been prolonged more, right? So if God wanted to prolong someone's days to the maximum extent, what would he do? He would give the person eternal life, right?

Besides, if Tovia Singer is right and Isaiah 53 is about Israel, does this mean that Israel is supposed to experience a lengthening of days which eventually come to an end? I hope not.

Abusing Sources: Benjamin Blech on the New Testament

Today, we are going to be looking at a section of Understanding Judaism by Benjamin Blech. Most of the book is a decent introduction to Orthodox Judaism. I say decent because there are better books out there on the subject. If you want an introduction to Orthodox Judaism, To Be A Jew by Hayim Donin is the best one on that subject. Now back to our topic. Understanding Judaism takes the occasional jab at Christian doctrines. However, near the end of the book, the author goes seemingly into a rage, accusing Jesus of desecrating and abrogating the laws of Moses.

One technique the anti-missionaries (and conspiracy theorists and college professors) use is called smuggling assumptions. In a normal presentation about a controversial topic, the presenter will first introduce the issue with statements that are generally undisputed by all sides of the debate. The presenter will then tell his or her side of the argument and respond to objections. The less honest presenter, however, will smuggle statements that are in fact disputed by the other sides into his or her introduction statements, which are assumed to be uncontroversial. See how many smuggled assumptions you can catch in the following passage.

It was Jesus who, when walking with his disciples on a Sabbath through the wheat fields, allowed his companions to pick and eat ears of wheat. When rabbis censured them for desecration of the Sabbath law, Jesus replied, "The son of man is master of the Sabbath" (Matthew 12:1-8). This was not a case of mortal danger legitimizing the violation of the Sabbath. There was no emergency, and yet Jesus permitted the desecration of the Sabbath. The old law could be replaced with the new. The Old Testament would be dismissed as secondary and nonbinding in light of the New Testament, which stressed faith over law.

There is an unresolved discrepancy between Jesus' practice and his claim "Do not suppose that I have come to do away with the law or the prophets. I have not come to do away with them but to enforce them. For I tell you, as long as Heaven and earth endure, not one dotting of an 'i' or crossing of a 't' will be dropped from the law until it is all observed. Anyone, therefore, who weakens one of the slightest of these commands, and teaches other to do so will be ranked lowest in the kingdom of Heaven; but anyone who observes them and teaches others to do so will be ranked high in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:17-19).

When Jesus and his disciples failed to observe a fast, the justification was: "No one sews a new patch of unshrunken cloth on an old coat; for if he does, the patch tears away, the new from the old, and makes the hole worse than ever, and no one pours new wine into old wine skins; for if he odes, the wine bursts the skins. New wine has to be put into fresh skins" (Mark 2:21-22). The law was the old, and had to be done away with. If it had any justification, it was only for sinners: "I agree that the law is excellent--provided it is legitimately used, with the understanding the law is not intended for upright men, but for the lawless and disorderly, the Godless and irreligious, the irreverent and profane, men who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, immoral people, men sexually perverted, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, or whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, as set forth in the glorious good news of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted" (1 Timothy 1:8-11). The righteous of faith do not need law. The dietary laws could be disregarded: "All foods are clean" (Mark 7:19). Clearly stated biblical laws could be disregarded: "They [the Jews] were told, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a Certificate of Divorce,' but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife on any ground except unfaithfulness, makes her commit adultery, and anyone who marries her after she is divorced commits adultery" (Matthew 5:31f).

The list is long. The facts are incontrovertible. The one who claimed he came not to do away with the law or the prophets acted contrary to this assertion. By his deeds he taught that what God had said long ago could be revised, amended, and improved.

Blech then quotes anachronistically from Maimonedes, who, having Jesus in mind when he wrote this, said that the Mosaic law as understood and interpreted by the Rabbis is eternal and absolutely unchangeable. If anyone challenges the Rabbinic understanding of the Mosaic law, no matter how many miracles he conjures up to support his claims, is a false prophet.

In short, Blech's case is that Jesus violated the law of Moses, knew that he was violating the law of Moses, and then made excuses for his disobedience afterward. The main smuggled assumption in this section is that all sides agree that Jesus did violate the laws of Moses, and the debate is over whether his reasons for violating the law was justified. But did Jesus even violate the Mosaic law?

First, let's take a look at different Rabbinical views of this issue. Remember that Benjamin Blech's objection is not that Jesus' view is inconsistent within the Christian system. His objection is that it is inherently wrong to abrogate the law of Moses or to violate it in any way outside of a life-or-death emergency.

When I was listening to a presentation by a Kollel Rabbi regarding the rulings in tractate Eruvin of the Talmud, page 13B. In it, the sages discuss what to do with contradictory rulings. Their solution was eilu v' eilu, both are the word of God.
To solve the problem of eilu v' eilu, one of the sages says this: Torah was given on 98 different levels. That means there are different levels in Torah. At each level, the practical manifestation will be different. If there is an argument between the house of Hillel and the house of Shammai, in 49 levels up there, the halacha follows Shammai. In 49 levels, we do like Hillel, and all levels are 100% right. We can only follow one of those 98 levels at any given time, but those other rulings and interpretations are not wrong. They are just attached to a different level.

So even according to the Rabbis, there are many different, coherent bodies of law. That way, Israel can follow one set of rulings in one age and another set of rulings in another age. If this is the case, what is the problem with Jesus interpreting the law of Moses? On this system, perhaps Jesus' rulings are one of those levels. So I don't even see why a Rabbi would even give such an objection.

What about the idea that all of the "forever" laws in the Pentatuch are eternal and immutable? Let's take a look at the Bible.

It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.
(Leviticus 3:17)

And the context does not restrict this to the priestly class, either. This is a command for all of Israel. No cholent for you!

But of course, we have to ask the question. Did Jesus even resort to something as drastic as changing the law? Let's examine the claims in order.

First up, Matthew 12. The passage says nothing about whether or not Jesus gave his disciples permission to pluck the heads of grain, but just that the disciples did so. No explicit violation of the Mosaic law has occurred. Instead the disciples are violating a Pharisaic interpretation of the law, and not the law itself. Also, nobody is stealing from the fields. Leviticus 19 allows people to take the grain from the edges of the fields.

In Mark 2, there is no indication that it was a fast day on the Jewish calendar. Mark states that the Pharisees and disciples of John were fasting, not the whole of Israel. This was a voluntary fast. No law was broken here.

In Mark 7, Jesus is declaring that it is not food that makes someone spiritually unclean, but wicked speech. The side comment that Jesus declared all foods clean is Mark's interpretation, if it was even in the original text at all (and there is strong reason to doubt this). Even if it was, it could easily be interpreted as Mark's suggestion to his gentile readership that they need not follow the Jewish dietary laws, which would have cut these gentiles off from their families and communities.

And besides, Midrash Tehillim 146:4 asks: "What is meant by '[The Lord] frees the prisoners'?" The answer given is: "Some say that every creature that is considered unclean in the present world, the Holy one blessed be He will declare clean in the age to come." So the idea of changing the dietary laws is not foreign to the Rabbis themselves. Remember that Blech's objection is not that changing the dietary laws is inconsistent within the Christian system. Blech's objection is that it is inherently wrong to change the dietary law. And to any follower of Rabbinic tradition, this objection is untenable.

The reference to 1 Timothy is an attack on Paul, not Jesus, and it misunderstands Paul's view of the law. Here is the whole paragraph:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
(1 Timothy 1:8-11)

Paul did not hate the law. He explicitly said that the law is good. He also mentioned that the laws of Moses, as well as law in general, exists because of human wickedness. If we were all perfectly righteous, perhaps life would be more like it was in Eden, where a very simple body of law was all that was needed.

When you read passages such as the long passage I cited in Understanding Judaism, remember that the Rabbis and skeptics alike take a lot of creative liberty, quoting short passages and adding a whole lot of their own personal commentary, until the passage they are quoting doesn't even resemble its original meaning in the context of the New Testament. Watch out for this when reading Rabbinic literature.

Internet Infidels Cannot Argue Consistently

In a previous video, I argued that Jewish anti-missionaries often argue inconsistently, holding the New Testament to a level of skepticism to which they would never hold their own writings.

At least the Internet Infidels do not have the same problem. They are willing to hold any religious text to the same level of scrutiny. Yet I still think that these skeptics are just as inconsistent, and deceptively so, as the anti-missionaries.

Skeptic John Loftus loves to bash Christian apologists for doing what he calls a "retreat to the possible." Instead of offering an answer to the skeptic's objection, the apologist will instead insist that as long as a solution to the problem is possible (e.g. the problem of evil), then the objection fails.

This complaint, I believe, is unwarranted. It confuses two different types of possibility: epistemic possibility and metaphysical possibility. If something is epistemically possible, then for all we know, it could be true. If something is metaphysically possible, then it is both logically coherent and does not contradict a known necessary truth. If our retreat to the possible is a retreat to epistemic possibility, then I agree that this may very well be an argument from ignorance. If it is a retreat to metaphysical possibility, then the argument is not from ignorance. It is a demonstration that two concepts (e.g. God and evil) are not logically incompatible.

However, many skeptics will give the same argument from ignorance, a retreat to the epistemically possible, of which they accuse Christian apologists. Just think with me a minute about some of the arguments for God. There's the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, where everything needs an explanation for its existence, and demonstrates that God's existence is self-explanatory while the physical world's existence is not. There's the Kalam Argument where the physical world's origin entails its cause. There is the Teleological Argument where the fine-tuning of the constants and quantities at the beginning of the universe point to design. There are moral, aesthetic and is-ought arguments which demonstrate that certain values that we have to believe in to live out our lives are both mind-dependent and objective. Hence, only an eternal and perfect mind can explain them. There are entire families of epistemic arguments which show that our beliefs in inductive reasoning, the reliability of our mental faculties, and the reliability of our sense perception are unjustified without God. Finally, there is the Ontological Argument, of which I have made two videos, which shows that our modal intuitions entail the existence of God.

Alvin Plantinga's Two Dozen or so Theistic Arguments

The responses from skeptics are numerous. They object to the fact that the second law of thermodynamics gives us a finite past, by arguing that someone might hypothetically be able to construct a perpetual motion machine based on Brownian motion. They object to the expansion of the universe entailing its beginning by appealing to wildly speculative scenarios based on certain variations of string theory. They argue that teleological arguments are invalid because you cannot calculate the probability of an event after it has occurred. They argue that moral values are either not mind-dependent after all, or that they they are not objective. All of these objections seem to be pretty desperate and implausible. the question is: how do we show the absurdity of these objections?

I think the solution is simple: Ask the skeptic if he or she would accept the same line of reasoning for Young Earth Creationism. This is not to knock Young Earth Creationism (although I myself am an Old Earth Creationist), but to use it as an example. Because if there is one thing that atheists and other "non-prophets" hate, it is Young Earth Creationism!

If the skeptic says that the physical world came into existence uncaused and not out of anything and just happened to have the fine-tuning of values such as the expansion, argue that perhaps the world came into existence 6,000 years ago, uncaused and out of nothing. Or perhaps our solar system came into existence 6,000 years ago as a result of a random collision of particles. The probability that our solar system formed this way is not zero. If they object and say that the universe or the world looks older, tell them that all possible configurations are unlikely, the way any given hand in poker is as unlikely to be dealt to you as a royal flush. Besides, you cannot calculate the probability of an event after it has occurred.

Some skeptics in response to the scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe will say that it's possible that we may one day come up with a new model that proves the eternality of the universe. Well, science is always changing. It's also possible that scientists may one day come up with a discovery that proves the universe is 6,000 years old and that all species were created in their current form.

If they object to the existence of objective moral values, saying that they are mere instincts, tell them you intend to convince your family and friends of Young Earth Creationism by any means necessary. Who cares if you intend to be less than honest in giving all the facts? Our ideas of morality are just evolved instincts, anyway. It's not like they are obligatory.

One skeptic objected to the Ontological Argument by stating that I have not proven beyond a doubt that my premises are true. He argued that the premises need to be known with certainty in order for the Ontological Argument to be a sound argument. This is a terrible misunderstanding of the nature of arguments.

In a valid deductive argument, it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false, therefore it is irrational to believe the premises and deny the conclusion. You do not need to be certain of the premises in order for the argument to be sound. If certainty was the criterion for a good argument, there would be almost no good arguments. Instead, the premises of the argument merely need to be more plausible than their negations. As long as you believe the premises, you cannot deny the conclusion.

Always ask yourself whenever you face a skeptic's objection: what if it was the other way around? Would they tolerate this kind of reasoning if it was used against them? If not, then their objection is untenable, as inconsistency is a sure sign of a failed argument.