Moral Argument for God

I recently listened to a debate between a Christian apologist (William Lane Craig) and an Atheist. The apologist brought up an argument that I have heard a million times and have failed to be convinced by. However, it seems that their opponents allways seem to choke on it. I often find myself screaming at them, what seems to me anyway, to be the obvious refutation.The argument in question is the moral argument for gods existence. It goes something like this: Then apologist will go on to say something along the lines of:"So, since my opponent rejects the idea of god, then he has no objective basis to say that Hitler, Rapists, or murderers are wrong."For some reason the Atheist invariably chokes on his refutation and flounders with some logical acrobatics. I assume because his only two resources are to say that there is no objective morality (which would derail the conversation), or to try and defend an Objective Morality sans god.Almost all that I have seen/heard take the latter and fail miserably to defeat the apologists claim.But I always find myself screaming, "morality only exists in the human world, when is the last time you worried about the treatment of factory farmed chickens as you devoured a bucket of KFC?"Further, how is a product of human society (i.e. Morality) prove god? It proves god as much as tribal dances, cars, and my sneakers. They are all things humans made up.I think the draw of this argument is that it leads the Atheist to look like someone who supports Hitler and rape, since it pushes him to say that there is no objective standard of morals. And no one wants to say that those things are good things.I dunno, does anyone else have some good rebuttals to this, most irritating, apologist ploy?This message has been edited by Yaro, 07-19-2005 10:38 AM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

If God decides standards of morality then they aren't objective.So the answer to this particular argument is to invoke the Euthyphro dilemma:Is an act good becauseGod commands it, or does God command it because it is good ?Typically either horn of the dilemma is unacceptable (the first because it denies objective morality, the second because it denies the necessity of God for morality).

Even if we assume objective standards--based on an "if" statement ("If it is murder, then it is wrong")--this does not prove the existence of God, any more than objective standards of mathematics prove the existence of God.

This is not a good defense, I have seen it before, and the argument usualy goes this way:"So you agree that the laws of math exist? And these are real intangible things dependent on the objective laws of logic. The laws of logic are real, intantgible things that require an entety to impose the laws. This intangible thing is god"Or somesuch.I have also seen Athiests balk on this rebuttal for similar reasons as the moral argument. The apologist will claim that logic comes from god, therefore the athiest must presupose god to assume logic.How do we counter this?

Hello, Yaro. It doesn't surprise me that people have trouble arguing against this one. Although it is clearly and obviously a bad argument for God, the deeper points can be a bit subtle and care needs to be taken in arguing it.-- I am going to basically repeat PaulK's point here. Why does God get to decide what is right or wrong? How does that make it objective?Perhaps God gets to set the rules because he's the one who created everything -- but one should see that this is no more an "objective" reason than anything else. Afterall, how many children have created playdough people, only just maliciously destroy them in the end? Just because God is the creator doesn't mean that God is just. Well, except that you are then defining "justice" to be whatever God wants. But then God can decide to do anything and order anything at all, and this would be "good". I think that this would go against most Christians' ideas that "good" and "evil" go a bit deeper than this -- somehow, this argument seems to assume that God is by nature good, and so his commands and decisions are good. But then this implies that something is good not because God desires it -- God desires something because it is already good.Related to this is the idea that we should obey God because he can punish and reward us. But this isn't morality or ethics -- it is the simple, practical matter of doing what a thug says just because he can hurt us. Again, morals and ethics are usually thought of as being a bit deeper than this, and the argument in the preceding paragraph apply here as well.So this leaves the idea that "good" and "evil" are concepts that transcend even God himself. But then a belief in God, or even the acknowledgement of his existence is not necessary. Even if the rest of this argument is valid (it's not), then all that is necessary is to acknowledge the existence of this transcendental principle -- Lao Tzu's Tao, if you will.-- This is false. One can believe that there are fixed moral standards without belief in God. Again, this is false. There are plenty of cultures that do not believe in gods, or at least not the Christian concept of a god who provides the law and enforces it, yet do not accept lying, stealing, or murder. If anything, they tend to belief in morality being an underlying law of nature that even the gods must acknowledge, like I have already mentioned.At any rate, the theory of evolution provides a nice naturalistic explanation for the existence of altruism (the basic concept of any code of morality) -- this explanation goes all the way back to Darwin himself.Of course, if the point is that there are no objective reasons for feeling that lying, stealing, and murder are wrong, then the person is correct, but so what? People just do feel that these are wrong. "Corruption of culture" usually refers to abandonment of old, outdated notions of morality in order to explore other ways of living and arranging society so that people are better able to live fullfilled, contented lives. This is actually a good thing!-- Now one has to be careful what the argument is. Is the claim that existence of God is necessary for morality to exist, or is it that belief in God is necessary? These are different claims, and the arguments against them are different. I have seen both claims before, and, more importantly, I have seen both claims get mixed up together in the same argument -- if you aren't aware of it, then your response might become confused. I advise people to be aware that these two are different claims, and to be aware if the opponent is mixing the two together -- insist that the opponent clarify which one is being argued, and compel her to stick with it.At any rate, the above is not given, so this concusion does not follow.The claim that belief is essential has an additional argument against it -- just because the lack of belief might lead to some unpleasant consequences does not make the belief true. It may be just a fact of life that the universe is unpleasant. But we need to acknowledge this fact if we are to know how to deal with it. Trying to get people to believe in an untruth just because one is afraid of the consequences doesn't sound like good policy to me.-- So it does appear that the claim is that existence of God is necessary for morality to exist.Again, the above is not a given, so this conclusion is false.Also, while it may be true (I will let someone else argue against this) that a society needs or has stable standards of morality, I will point out that these standards are very specific to the individual cultures. It is not a single standard of morality that leads to the stability of all cultures and societies. So are we to conclude that God has designated different morality for different cultures?

There seem to me to be some confusion here between 2 meanings of the word "law": A law of math or science is not a legislative law, and thus requires no lawmaker. The laws of math are definitional and the laws of science are descriptive. The "law" of gravity is just a description of what things always do. There need not be an "entity" to "impose" the law.

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1. If God exists, then God and God alone decides what is (truly) right and wrong. Without God there could be no ultimate standards of morality.

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IMO there are no ultimate standards of morality pertaining to all that is considered creation.Even the OT had different standards for Hebrews and non-Hebrews as in Leviticus 25 concerning slavery.Also Deuteronomy 23:20 The Bible itself shows that the human application of "right and wrong" changes over time and is relative to the needs of the individual, culture, or group.I would think that any moral argument for God's existence would need to show that an ultimate standard of morality actually exists for all that God created.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Here's how I see it. The animal kingdom and nature do not have morals. Animals murder and steal and its just might makes right or survival of the fittest. I think humans have stepped outside of nature, we have morals. I think they've come from us having a consciousness and being able to predict the results of our actions, how they'd affect other people. I think this seperates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. We're outside of nature, there's something supernatural about us. Its on the inside, like our soul, or something. This suggests the existance of a god, to me. That we don't fit in with the rest of the animals.On good and evil. A metaphor I use to describe them is hot and cold. You cannot make cold, you can only remove heat. God is good is the heat, and evil is the cold. Evil isn't something that is made, evil is just a lack of good(god).

You obviously know little about animal social behavior. WITHIN animal societies there are internal relevant morals. A wolf pack for example has certain codes of behavior rules etc. Wolves make friends, have relationships, help each other out, fight for justice within their ranks and so on.As you move on to more sophisticated animals such as dolphins and monkeys you find even more telling behavior. They help out their elderly by bringing them food, "prosecute" offenders within their social circles, "punish" their youngsters for bad behavior.Animal societies are very complex social structures, and are hardly as anarchic as you state.Infact, animals often extend altruistic behavior beyond their species. This is evidenced today by a story on NPR feturing a hippo who has made friends with a giant tortoise: Now...Since animals obviously have their own internal social morals, just like us they don't apply them beyond their ranks. (save for a few exceptions as noted above)Whereas lions are unlikely to stalk their pride mates and kill them, when it comes to wildabeast all bets are off.Likewise, it may be wrong to cage a person, force feed him for 10 years, kill him brutaly, then eat him. But us americans do this dayly to millions of chickens.EDIT: Here is the NPR story BTW:A Hippo and Tortoise Tale : NPRThis message has been edited by Yaro, 07-19-2005 04:59 PM

The claim that morality cannot exist without belief in an archaic mythology is simply false. By my own existence as an atheist and a man of exemplary moral character, my existence (as well as the vast number of moral atheists out there) I disprove the first premise. Thus, the entire argument is invalid.

Yaro's answered one point - I'll take on another.If evil is merely the absence of good then the only evil act would be a failure to perform a good act. There would be no act that could be labelled actively evil. But it is generally agreed that that is not the case. Murder, for instance, is labelled as evil - yet it is an act, not a failure to act.

Hi, mike.I think that the claim is that the reason you have morals, even though you are an atheist, is that God exists and has set up an absolute moral code of which you are dimly aware, even if you don't follow it exactly. Whether it is because God has given you an innate conscience or because you secretly do believe in God (remember kendemeyer, anyone?) I can't tell from the OP.

As Yaro pointed out, you are wrong about animal behavior and how social structures and mutual cooperation can be highly beneficial to an organism.We are creatures who, like many other species, behave in a social way because it has evolved in us and that in no way means we have "stepped outside nature".Altruism, which is at the very heart of morality, is an evolved trait in us just as it is in wolves. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," we are told in one of the many holy books. It is unsurprising that the morals that work also obey the iron law of survival of the species by being about altruism, self sacrifice for the group, and the protection of the young, among many other things. If they didn't we would have evolved another scheme that did, or died out.What is called morality is easily explicable by only the world that can be observed. To add an element, especially an element that is invisible and beyond proof or reason, is of no use and should be avoided.

That photo is cute as hell!!!