Part Four

Ought implies Can?

The only way our world is going to have peace is if we can have a moral system where we ought to be good in a way that is consistent with our own and others happiness. If this is what the world wants and this is what we ought to do, then it must be rational that we can do it. This moral principle is that “ought” implies we “can” achieve it. If we Cant achieve what we ought to do then we are believing in something that is rationally unstable and irrational. I take the notion that happiness for morality to work must be “achieving enough of our own goals to avoid frustration.” But for many happiness is based on pleasure and all pleasure is good.

Second morality requires us not to rank our own advantages above that of others, just because they are ours; this is because morality requires us to treat all human beings as having the same worth. Humans have a double motivation towards our happiness and towards what is good in itself regardless of its connection with our happiness.

So morality requires us to believe that it is possible for people affected by our actions, including ourselves to be happy in a way that is consistent with each other’s happiness. We ought to try to increase each other’s happiness, and so we must be able to believe this is possible. The general union of happiness would be called the highest good.

If we were all morally good we would be trying to make each other happy, and we would have to believe we could or there would be no rational reason to even try.
The problem is that all people don’t come across as morally good and for many what come across first as the strongest desire is self-advantage, not the happiness of others. What makes people miserable is the way we treat each other, because we don’t share each other’s morally permissible ends. Also we need this moral system to hold in the present and in the future. The question arises, if we are not morally good how are we to achieve this state of goodness. The problem gets worse when we affirm that many people don’t even think there is moral virtues or a basic principle of goodness other than relative preferences. The problem doesn’t just ask for how we define and enforce this standard of the highest good, but also can the human nature be able to become good internally.

One atheist philosopher says that each person has the ability to determine his or her own meaning to life fully, we just need to be educated on moral principles.

But John Hare in his chapter in the book “Is Goodness Without God Good Enough” says, “But it is doubtful whether we know how to make people good through moral education, and the optimism of the late nineteenth century did not survive the twentieth, in particular the Second World War, in which the people who carried out the massacres and Holocaust were the most educated people in the world’s history to that point.”

Is it possible that the human heart can change and become fashioned to seeking the happiness of others, once the problem of defining what the highest good would be is found.

If on an atheistic worldview this is not possible, that is,

1 (Ought) We “ought” to be good in a way that is consistent with our own and others happiness. And that we “ought” to become good internally.
2. (Can) It is possible for us to be good in a way that is consistent with our own and others happiness. Also that we can become good internally.

Then it can’t be achieved,

If we can not come up with a definition of what is the highest good and live it out and fashion other’s to be good internally, then it is not rational to hold that world peace or happiness can be achieved. Also it is wrong to hold that we “ought” to try and seek the happiness of our own and of the happiness of others as it can not be achieved. This would imply that we are not obligated to do it, because we can’t do it, and only what we can do is what we ought to do. I see no way that an atheist can achieve this quest in seeking for universal peace, it just becomes an abstract illusion. Therefore in an atheistic worldview we do not have to seek the happiness of all people for the highest good. Therefore there is no standard of goodness and the act of self-sacrifice becomes a meaningless action. If all that exists is the present life and there is no objective good why would anyone give up his or her life or pleasures for another? You would be dying for no gain at all and even if you did do it, it would not be because it was the right thing to do. Also there is no basis for moral accountability on atheism. The important thing about moral accountability is that it makes our moral choices significant. In the absence of moral accountability, our choices become trivialized because they make no ultimate contribution to either the betterment of the universe or to the moral good in general because everyone ends up the same dead in the grave. Without God death is the great leveler, all acts end in nothing, worthless.

It is only if God exists that we can have objective value that all humans have equal worth. That is because we are created in the image of the greatest necessary being God.

God is the greatest metaphysical value, which is based on his objective eternal Good nature, which is the norm for all people to live by. His goodness flows out to bring the happiness to our selves and for others. Because we are all created in his image we all have the same value and should all be respected. Our obligation (or our ought-ness) to seek the happiness of all other’s stems from God’s commands, which are based on his good nature and the ontological value of each person. We are accountable to him to do what we ought to do and if we place our faith in him, he will change our sinful hearts by his spirit so that we can internalize the good. Therefore what we ‘ought’ to do is what we “can’ do. Human experience has shown that this works and people lives can be chnaged.

As for our actions having no significance, God makes sense to our self-sacrifices, as no act of self-sacrifice will go ultimately uncompensated. For God is not unjust as to overlook your work and love which you have showed (Heb 6;10). When God brings all finite days to an end he will bring ultimate justice, and not some meaningless empty finite relative fleeting justice. He will reward us for our action’s and judge our wicked deeds and deliver divine justice to the universe.

Part Three

Relativism and the Atheist’s moral charge against God
The second objection that is usually hurled against God’s existence is the Atheists problem that evil exists and there is just too much suffering in the world for a loving God to be real. The question “why does a loving God stand back and let people suffering, let kids get raped and abused, and so forth” is a honest question. But it does not bring into question God’s existence but his character. But before we look at the reason’s why God could pass these things to happen, I want us to revisit the logic of the charge.

First problem; The atheist is being inconsistent with his own worldview. The atheist with his moral relativism steps out to charge God as doing something objectively wrong. The question must be asked “By what objective standard has God done something wrong”.

I mean in the atheistic worldview what is good is what each individual subjectively prefers. And as we have seen atheism has no answer how to even determine what is “good” as reason can not answer the question. Simple logic shows that the atheist can not make an intelligible judgement on what is objectively good and evil and loses the power to make a charge against God.

Second problem; The idea that there is just to much evil in the world fails as well to refute God’s existence, as how can a finite subjective being judge how much evil or suffering is to much? One can not make absolute statements based on ones personal feelings on a matter. Has the atheist measured the amount of goodness that has been done on earth as well? Also the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil are meaningless if God does not exist. Their existence implies there is a moral order to the world and that people are doing something wrong against this standard. This is why a moral lawgiver must exist (God). The atheist Sam Harris asks “Why is a moral law-giver necessary in order to recognize good and evil?” The reason is that a moral affirmation cannot remain an abstraction. The only ground the atheist can get is to say he believes in God, but his subjective feelings are different to God’s.

Yes the claim goes “God is evil because he stands by and watches young children getting raped, torture and murdered?” But haven’t atheist ever realized that they exist too and abuse their free will which includes disturbing the environment.

If one wishes to talk about suffering he must talk about autonomy versus God’s story of why we are the way we are. Though the sacred is offered to us, the will is arrogant and refuses to submit to God’s authority. No one of us is any different from or better than any other, some just mask his or her true nature better.

Are atheist’s demanding that God create in us the ability to love without giving us the option to reject that love, the desire to trust and to be trusted without the freedom to doubt, the privilege of making a choice without the responsibility of accepting the ramifications of that choice?

Ravi Zacharias quotes the atheist, Sam Harris as saying “God if he exists is the most prolific abortionist of all” saying that even one death at God’s hand is unacceptable, while he (Harris) himself looks the other way as millions of unborn children are aborted.

As Zacharias says, Can you explain something to me? When a plane crashes and some die while others live, a skeptic calls into question God’s moral character, saying that he has chosen some to live and others to die a whim, yet you say it is your moral right to chose whether the child within you should live or die. Does that not sound odd to you? When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral. When you decide who should live or die, its your moral right?”

There is one difference between God allowing a death to take place and me taking another life; God has to the power to restore life, I don’t. If God is the sovereign creator of all creation does he not have the right to deal with wickedness, or take some home to heaven to be with him, even if it messes our lives up. This world is our training ground to shape and fashion our hearts to be manifestations of pure goodness. The unborn are innocent, most of us are not in any way of fashion.

Because God is absolutely good his acts are always ended for good, ultimate Justice, not fleeting pleasures, not letting people like Hitler or Stalin or even us win the day. The atheist’s who try’s to condemn God are in fact implying that humans have intrinsic value and worth, which can only be justified if God exists and also the atheist uses a universal absolute moral law to judge God which is again God’s moral law. The fact is we cannot remove pain from the earth until evil is solved, as it is pain that gives the felt reality of evil in this world, which we course. That does not mean we are responsible for everything that happens to us in our lives


Zacharias says “Psychiatry in fact is wrestling with the ramifications of a drug that removes guilt and remorse. What kind of world will we have when a rapist can take a morning after pill” for his guilt?…”If it is possible in our finite world with our limited knowledge to be able to appreciate just one benefit of pain, is it not possible that God has designed this awareness within us to remind us of what is good for us and what is destructive? Can we not see the moral framework that detects atrocities and resists tragedies? Could there be a greater, deeper answer than saying there is no God?”

The Human Heart is bent towards Evil
Do you think there is not one empirical evidence that each us of us has clearly experienced in our lives that shows God (I would say there are many more). Have we never seen evil or experienced it and known that it lives just as much in your bent heart than in another. To deny this reality is to class your self as a Sociopath. If there is evil in this world then some actions have gone against a moral standard that the universe should be following. The problem with this sin nature is (and its effect will hit you now) that it will suppress any evidence that relates to God, as we prefer that our inner motives where kept hidden.
We say, no I’m not a sinner, I’m not that bad, I don’t have a nature that seems to go against what I know is right. I’m not having this condemnation thing, Who are you Judge? I just make random mistakes connected to know moral law, I live for my self.

God, Love and Free Will
The charge has been made against God many times that “If God is all-powerful and all loving why is there evil. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not all-powerful. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is not all loving. Is he both able and willing? Then why is there evil?

Before I answer this question I want to deal with the problem of evil/suffering if there is no God. If there is no God the simple truth is there is no evil in this world and suffering is meaningless. If all that exists is nature then nature just “is” running by blind fate. No action or event is right or wrong, they just are. To say that an action or an event in this world is evil or wrong is to judge it against a moral standard the universe should be following. This implies a moral lawgiver behind the universe as moral standards are only held in minds. Atheist have always had trouble with the Naturalistic Fallacy of trying to get an “ought” from and “is’. The laws of nature (without God) produce what “is”, but morality is what we “ought” to do. But what every happens in nature is what it is and one cannot say this “ought” to have not happened and that it is wrong in a Godless universe. If all that exists is nature (the material world of matter) then we are a part of nature and follow its laws too. Without God suffering become meaningless and those who experience it have no hope for their pain or illusion. The Atheists problem is that he has a belief in evil, and objective right and wrong most of the time, but if there is no God this is just a belief that is an illusion trapped in ones mind that doesn’t correspond to reality.

C.S.Lewis once said,
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A Man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of straight line. What was I comparing the universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I , who was supposed to be part of the show find myself in such violent reaction against it?”

Pain and suffering is real, but atheism does not give any answer to the problem. It in fact turns us into being insane. The question must be asked, can God explain it? I think all of us can look out into the world and see something is wrong. This world is not perfect which implies some thing has gone wrong.

C.S.Lewis also said,
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world”

Just maybe this world of pain and suffering is a sign for us to look up to the standard we wish this universe were following. Maybe the sting of pain cracks our conscience to search for the good (God). I want to make it clear here, not everything thing that goes wrong in our lives is our fault.
As for the charge that an all-loving God must be evil if people suffer in this world is not a very strong case. I don’t have all the answers, but it is more than atheism can give.

One argument can be stated to answer this charge,

1. An all-good God will create the best world that is possible for perfection
2. An all-powerful God can create only what is logically possible
3. An all-knowing God knows what is all-good and creates humans with the gift of freewill.
4. The gift of freedom (which evolution denies) is a good power, but if abused by free creatures produces moral evil.
5. It was not within Gods logical power to create a world containing moral goodness, but no moral evil.
6. Therefore God is not evil and evil is not inconstant with the existence of God.

Now if true goodness or love has any value at all it must be done freely and humans have been given the gift of freedom. Forced love is rape! No one values love from a spouse or a lover, which is not from a pure motive.

One must also define and brake down evil and suffering, as it is not only felt from the abuse of free will.

Moral Evil

Moral evil looks at the relationship of free creatures with God. It covers the subject of moral responsibility as free agents, as the cause of evil. When we abuse our freewill and reject God’s moral standards, evil is produced. Even mental deficiencies can result from something one person does to another. God can heal people instantly, but most of these occurrences that I have seen have been when God saves some one radically.

Natural Evil

Because of the fall creation has also suffered and has been cursed. But natural evil looks at acts that are produced by physical pain or acts of nature. Some times fires or earthquakes can cause human suffering, misshapen limbs, blindness. Some times human actions again can cause genetic malfunctions which can result in birth defects resulting from evil done by the parents during pregnancy (Expectant mother using drugs or alcohol heavily can negatively affect the developing fetus). We must take responsibility for our actions. Some times we do everything right, but others inflict suffering on us!
Our freedom for greed and lust could also be the cause of the brake down of the environment, with our pollution and extreme life-style. Maybe God is not the one to blame for everything as all the good we experiences comes from him too.
Can anything come out of suffering?

The sting of suffering seems to bring out true love out of us. It draws love out of us which probable would never be manifested unless suffering was he. We can talk about love, kindness, but it’s only under suffering that we can really see how we act to others. It test’s our heart and motives to see if they are real.

1. obedience is learnt from suffering
2. suffering produces character
3. Suffering can bring us closer in love to a greater bond.
4. True love suffer long, thinks of others and is selfless
5. Biological pain warns us of danger
6. The virtue of compassion, patience and mercy can not be produced without tribulation, or mercy without tragedy.
7. God can bring good out of evil
8. Maybe the sting of pain leads us to the road of goodness and love for others.
9. The Nazi’s showed the world what happens when you de-value the dignity and value of human life created in the image of God. It has made a powerful stamp on the world that humans are worth more.
10 Temptation, through they make us do dumb things, show us what is really in us and who we really are inside. It’s almost like a gift if used right.
11. Even Jesus had do suffer for the whole world to demonstrate true love.

Religion is the cause of all wars!
A third objection that is raised again God and Christianity is that the belief in God has caused more suffering and wars on earth then non-belief. This is a favorite argument from some of the popular atheist spokesmen. You may want to look at Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod in their massive 1502 page 3-volume encyclopedia of war. It is compiled by nine reputable professors of history, including the director of the Centre of Military history and the former head of the Centre for Defence studies. They conclude that from what we know from history there have been about 1763 wars and only 123 have been over religion. This makes religion 6.98 percent accountable. If you take away the wars from ‘Muslim’s it drops down to 3.23 percent.
I dont think the evidence proves that religion is the cause of war or mass murdering.

Here is another source from “Stand to Reason”

A blight on Christianity? Certainty, Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religion criminals have committed.
My point is not that Christians or religious people aren’t vulnerable to committing terrible crimes. Certainly they are. But it is not religion that produces these things; it is the denial of Biblical religion that generally leads to these kinds of things. The statistics that are the result of irreligious genocide stagger the imagination.
My source is The Guinness Book of World Records . Look up the category “Judicial” and under the subject of “Crimes: Mass Killings,” the greatest massacre ever imputed by the government of one sovereign against the government of another is 26.3 million Chinese during the regime of Mao Tse Tung between the years of 1949 and May 1965. The Walker Report published by the U.S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary in July 1971 placed the parameters of the total death toll in China since 1949 between 32 and 61.7 million people. An estimate of 63.7 million was published by Figaro magazine on November 5, 1978.
In the U.S.S.R. the Nobel Prize winner, Alexander Solzhenitsyn estimates the loss of life from state repression and terrorism from October 1917 to December 1959 under Lenin and Stalin and Khrushchev at 66.7 million.
Finally, in Cambodia (and this was close to me because I lived in Thailand in 1982 working with the broken pieces of the Cambodian holocaust from 1975 to 1979) “as a percentage of a nation’s total population, the worst genocide appears to be that in Cambodia, formerly Kampuchea. According to the Khmer Rouge foreign minister, more than one third of the eight million Khmer were killed between April 17, 1975 and January 1979. One third of the entire country was put to death under the rule of Pol Pot, the founder of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. During that time, towns, money and property were abolished. Economic execution by bayonet and club was introduced for such offenses as falling asleep during the day, asking too many questions, playing non-communist music, being old and feeble, being the offspring of an undesirable, or being too well educated. In fact, deaths in the Tuol Sleng interrogation center in Phnom Penh, which is the capitol of Kampuchea, reached 582 in a day.”
Then in Chinese history of the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries there were three periods of wholesale massacre. The numbers of victims attributed to these events are assertions rather than reliable estimates. The figures put on the Mongolian invasion of northern China form 1210 to 1219 and from 1311 to 1340 are both on the order of 35 million people. While the number of victims of bandit leader Chang Hsien-Chung, known as the Yellow Tiger, from 1643 to 1647 in the Szechwan province has been put at 40 million people.
China under Mao Tse Tung, 26.3 million Chinese. According the Walker Report, 63.7 million over the whole period of time of the Communist revolution in China. Solzhenitsyn says the Soviet Union put to death 66.7 million people. Kampuchea destroyed one third of their entire population of eight million Cambodians. The Chinese at two different times in medieval history, somewhere in the vicinity of 35 million and 40 million people. Ladies and gentlemen, make note that these deaths were the result of organizations or points of view or ideologies that had left God out of the equation. None of these involve religion. And all but the very last actually assert atheism.

Hitler
Then we have the millions killed by Hitler and his men. Many people try and make the claim that Hitler was a Christian but this is not true. As I have said before its one thing to call yourself a Christian and another thing to be a Christian.
Atheists charge that Christianity was the course of anti-Semitism, which led to the Holocaust. But this is clearly false. Has no one read that Hitler dabbled in the occult, that he presented the writings of Nietzsche (The most atheistic philosophy ever written) to Stalin and Mussolini. That Hitler also slaughtered many other races apart from Jews. Many Russian atheists were killed too and Hitler’s words written on one of the gas ovens in Auschwitz states “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious relentless and cruel.” Hitler believed in evolution that the strong must wipe out the inferior races. This is very different from Jesus who spent all his time with the poor and broken. He even said “ I have not come for the righteous, but for the unrighteous.”

Part Two

God and Morality
So far in our study we have seen that the question of what goodness is and how one is to find a reference point to draw the conclusion has been fruitless. I hope I have shown in some way the almost impossibility of morality linked to goodness from an atheistic worldview. In this section we will see where God’s existence plays in the grounding of morality and goodness.

Reality exists
When we reflect on life we soon come to the conclusion that we exist and that we are part of some reality. Did this reality always exist or did it come into existence? If the world which we find our-selves in has always existed then the world is eternal, self-existent. But if the world has not existed forever and has come into existence then there must be another source for its existence. Some where in the chain of cause and effect there has to be an eternal ultimate starting point, an uncaused entity.
Reality exists, so there must be an eternal foundation for its existence. As reality can not come into existence from nothing. Nothing has no power and from nothing, nothing comes. To explain it simple there has to be a starting point, which does not need a cause for its existence.
This foundation is either rational or impersonal, God or the universe. If it is God and science is correct, the universe had a beginning then God is the eternal foundation for all finite reality. If it is not God then the universe is impersonal (irrational) with no meaning to it or behind it. Also this universe would have to of had existed forever, being eternal.

The universe is not eternal
That fact that science has proved the universe came into beginning from the Big Bang means that it is not eternal and needs a cause for its existence. There are only two options to chose form. The source is a rational eternal God who projects his thoughts into reality or the universe comes into being by chance. Ether the universe is governed by a rational mind or it is governed by irrational chance.

The Nature of the First Cause
It therefore follows that the universe has an external cause. Conceptual analysis enables us to recover a number of striking properties, which must be possessed by such an entity.
For as the cause of space and time in to existence, this entity must transcend space and time and therefore exist atemporally and non-spatially. This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial, since timelessness entails changelessness, and changelessness implies immateriality. Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused. This entity must also be unimaginably powerful since it created the universe without any material cause.
Such a transcendent cause is also personal. Reasons for this imply that there are only two types of causal explanations. The first being scientific explanation in terms of laws and initial conditions and personal explanations in terms of agents and their wills. Now the first is impossible as a first state of the universe cannot be a scientific explanation, since there is nothing before it and cannot be accounted for in terms of laws operating on initial conditions (as in the universe). It can only be accounted for in terms of agent and his volition’s, a personal explanation. Second the personhood of the cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality. This being is a personal mind who has a sufficient reason for the universe and cause for it. Giving the universe complete meaning and purpose and rational, moral order in relationship.
The cause of the universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a universe in time. This is what is called “agent causation” and this free choice does not need a material cause, as it is a mental choice, being “of” or “about” something.

John Frame says in his book “The Doctrine of the Christian Life”

“As Lord, God is, first of all personal, for Lord is proper name. Thus the Bible proclaims that ultimate reality, the Supreme Being, is not an impersonal force like gravity or electromagnetism, or even a set of super-strings, but a person; one who thinks, speaks, feels, loves, and acts with purpose. As a purpose, he uses the impersonal realities of the universe for his own purposes and to his own glory. Modern secular thought is profoundly impersonalistic, holding that persons are ultimately reducible to things and forces, to matter, motion, time, and chance. Scripture denies this impersonalism, insisting that all reality, including all value comes from a supreme personal being”.

Because God is eternal he is eternal value and the highest standard and original source of all value that we find in the finite universe. His being and nature is Holy and is the norm of all goodness. Without God’s existence nothing in the universe has any distinct value at all.

For the Christian all the facts of the universe and all facts of value are part of God’s personal plan and serve his personal purpose; all of the laws by which we relate the facts (weather conceptually, logically, or causally) are a reflection of God’s personal mind and his ordering of reality. Man’s mind was created to imitate God’s thinking with respect to those personally qualified facts and personally qualified laws. God’s personal influence over all the objects of knowledge as well as the mind of man, and his purpose to have man understand and control the facts of his environment, provide for the possibility of the mind accurately apprehending the extramental world. Everything and every event must by ultimately related to God (who controls the relations between things and between events) in order to be part of a coherent and intelligible system.

Objectivity and Inwardness
Because God is morally good and is bound by his good nature his sovereignty governs over all our ethical lives. First by his control, God plans and rules nature and history, second by his authority, he speaks to us clearly, telling us what norms govern our behavior, and third, by his covenant presence. This is where God commits himself to walk with us in our conscience, and speak to us from the moral law which guide’s us to keep his commandments.

The Bible teaches that the law of God is objective in the sense that its meaning does not depend on us. It comes from God’s authoritative word.

William Lane Craig makes the point,

“So what do we mean by an Objective moral Value, well to say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so. That is if a bomb hit the world and all that was left were pedophiles or rapists would there actions still be objectively wrong? Similarly to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us independently of whether any human being believes them to be so.
For example to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still be wrong even if they brain washed every body else to think it was right.”

But God is not pleased with merely external obedience. He wants his word to be written on the human heart, where it motivates us from within. God writes his moral law on the hearts of his people. In the Christian worldview, moral standards are both objective and inward.

John Frame says,

“Those who deny that worldview must seek objectivity in an unknowable realm, where the moral standard cannot be known at all, let alone objective. They seek inwardness by making each person his own moral standard. But that dispenses with all objectivity and leaves us with nothing to internalize.”

It is God who arranges nature and history so that good act’s have beneficial consequences, to himself, to the ethical agent, and to other persons. The God of scripture is the author of the situation, the Word, and the moral self, so that the three are fully consistent with one another. He ordains history, so that people will find their ultimate blessings in doing their duty. He makes us in his image, so that our greatest personal fulfillment occurs in seeking his glory in history.
Without God it is impossible to have a system of ethics that brings ultimate fulfillment and blessings to all people, as each individual is constantly lost in his own subjectivity.

God is not only the chief norm and chief fact, but also the chief person (personality). He is not only our law and our situation, but also our example of holiness, righteousness and love. He is good, as only a person can be and he is good because that is an attribute of his nature, God is eternal goodness. The first objection that is given by Atheist Philosophers is “Is what God commands good because he says it is or because it corresponds to a standard of goodness independent of his own choices, which implies another standard”. To most people the answer is obvious, God’s commandments are good because they flow from his eternal nature which is good.

The Euthyphro Argument Fails
When it comes to establishing absolute moral standards in God, atheists continue to use the Euthuphro argument to try and trap God and discredit his standard for goodness. The Euthyphro dilemma raised by Socrates was: "Is what is holy, holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy?" Atheist are quick to see that if what is good is based on what God commands then anything that God commands even if it was rape would by logic be good. So atheist imply that for God to be good there must be an independent moral standard of “Goodness” that judges God actions.

John Frame says in his book “The Doctrine of God”

“So Plato, in Euthyphro, poses the question of whether piety is what the gods say it is, or whether the gods command piety because of its intrinsic nature, apart from their own wishes. In Plato’s mind, the former makes the nature of piety arbitrary, one that could change on the whim of a god. But the second alternative, which Plato certainly prefers, means that piety is independent of the will of the gods, something to which the gods opinions are subject.”

Atheists like this so called trap because to stop God having relative standards there must be an eternal abstract standard that judges God’s acts. They like it because even if there were no God, there would still be an objective standard by which atheists can establish objective morality.

The Atheist Philosopher Michael Martin says,
“For example, suppose God condemns rape because of his just and merciful character. According to this independent standard of goodness, being merciful and just is precisely what a good character involves. In this case, even if God did not exist, one could say that a merciful and just character is good. Human beings could use this standard to evaluate peoples' character and action based on this character. They could do this whether or not God exists.”

So Martin wonders why the non-existence of God would adversely affect the goodness of mercy, compassion, and justice.
The problem with this argument is that ‘goodness” is not based on what ever God says. Goodness is the eternal nature of God and God is bound by his perfect nature to act “good”. God would not command people to rape or torture people because it is against his perfect nature. If God is the eternal uncaused cause of everything else that exist then he is the eternal source for moral goodness, which everything else takes its existence from.

Paul Copan makes a good point when he says,
“The "reasons" Martin offers for why rape is wrong already assume the dignity of human beings, the existence of universal human rights, an objective purpose/end for human existence, moral obligation, and moral responsibility. Thus Martin needs to offer a more robust explanation for these assumptions, but we have seen that the atheistic worldview lacks such resources while the theistic perspective anticipates a moral universe.”

In fact the very argument can be reversed back on to the atheist, for if objective moral properties just exist out in the universe independent of humans, then are they good because they are good or is there some independent standard of good to which they conform?" Thus the alleged dilemma Martin claims the theist faces is the very same one the atheist does. So there is no actual advantage for the atheist in presenting this challenge. The same potential charges of arbitrariness or the existence of some autonomous moral standard (such as platonic Forms) still apply. If the atheist claims that he is not being arbitrary, then why should the theist's viewpoint be considered any less arbitrary? The sword cuts both ways. It is more intelligence to place the moral law’s existence in a perfect moral being, then floating in impersonal irrational matter/Atoms independent of a mind.

Paul Copan concludes with,
“The theist has a plausible basis for this: human beings have value by virtue of their personhood, which is derived from the personhood of God? The ultimately valuable Being. Having been created in the image of God gives human beings their value. Their nature? with its moral, rational, and spiritual capacities? resemble God's. So to assume morality without God seems to miss the ontological implications of the question. That is, if there is no personal God to bestow personhood? And its attendant intrinsic dignity and moral responsibility, then we can't rightly say, "I can be a person with intrinsic dignity and moral responsibility even if God doesn't exist."

God’s Image and Human Goodness
God has made human beings to be his image and this intention is for his own union of goodness and being to be reflected in us. This image is never quite the same as God’s. As we are finite and stuck in our fallen nature and he is sinless and God. But God is the ultimate norm for all things. God’s very nature is normative and is our source of ethical obligation. There are three necessary conditions for human good works; right motive, right standard, and right goal, Gods’ glory.

The Three Transcendentals
Truth, Goodness and Beauty are three attributes of God and they are the source for our norms and experiences of them. God is the eternal interpretation of all finite existence.
These attributes are part of God’s being and are ontological founded.

Peter Kreeft says in his Essay in the book C. S. Lewis as Philosopher; Truth, Goodness and Beauty,

“The order of these three transcendentals of truth, goodness and beauty is ontologically founded. Truth is defined by Being, for truth is the effulgence of Being, the revelation of Being, the Word of Being. Truth is not defined by consciousness, which conforms to Being in knowing it. Goodness is defined by truth, not by will, which is good only when it conforms to the truth of Being. And beauty is defined by goodness, objectively real goodness, not by subjective desire or pleasure or feeling or imagination, all of which should conform to it.”

When we reflect God’s image we will walk in his truth, manifest his goodness and see the beauty of his ways as we experience the fullness of his nature.

As Psalm 19;7-9 says,
“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean enduring forever, the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

God is our truth and light for our guidance, his word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. This is why Jesus said “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The Moral Question (Part 1)

Here is the start of me putting my notes into course notes...This is part 1

In our present age the idea of morality has become an individual thing. People these days want freedom and liberty to express their own true image. This image representing their own personal choices, one that has not been imposed on them or is part of societies conditioning from the majority. Instead of holding the traditional view that morality is what we ought to do, it has evolved in to what we prefer or what we desire to do. The problem with this definition is that it confuses the question of what morality is? I will never forget a professor who once asked the question “What is the difference between some one who chooses their own morality and some one who has no morality?” The answer was “that there is no different as they both do what ever they want to do”. So is morality what we want to do or is it what we ought/should do? I mean is there anything that no one should ever do because it is just off the list as being objectively wrong.

These kinds of definitions is what drives society into the world of relativism where no one really knows where they stand with each other as everybody has there own morality. It used to be held that the majority of people had a moral sense that something’s were just wrong independent of whether some ones feelings disagreed with the ruling.
This makes us have to reflect on what is the justification for making these claims, where does one get the idea that something’s are just wrong or is that from just being conditioned by earlier generations opinions to think that some acts are objectively wrong.
Is the question of God’s existence relevant to the question of morality or can it be completely explained by a naturalistic theory. It is these questions that we will be looking at as we search for a foundation for morality. The first question we will look at is “Correct function and Reason”.

Correct Function and Reason

Have you ever asked your self “what is the good life”. What is a good person and what is the standard of goodness. Because the question is obviously very important, for how is one to guide their life morally if one has no idea of what goodness is.
What is a good person? The answer comes forth at once, A good person is one who performs efficiently or well the function of a human being. And this at once invites the further question “What is the function of a human being? Now this question is not asking what is the function of this or that person, but what is the function of a person, just as a human being might be. This is a difficult question to answer as if God is rejected then nature is left to explain reality and human nature by pure fate. If humans have not been created to function in a particular correct way then it is hard to know how a human should act. As humans can do many actions and desire many things, are all these free options because we are able to perform them or do some actions go against a moral norm.

If God is taken out of the picture, the idea of a person functioning correctly while avoiding other actions destroys any foundation of a designed morality. That humans are inherently good manifesting this designed character which seeks to express these moral standards is not an option.
Now if humans are not created for a correct function then it is nonsense to talk about people doing good and evil. It is also nonsense to say that humans are inherently good, as this implies they have been created good to act good, which implies they have been created according to a moral absolute standard that transcends them. If evolution is true then humans have no correct function and the idea of acting good is meaningless. All humans are, are machines who struggle over desires. If humans are not inherently good and created in the image of God with a moral law written on their hearts, reason driven by blind will has no hope in finding what goodness is in itself.
So if there is no created moral law in humans can we still understand right and wrong by using human reason. Can the power of rational thought tell us how we should act?

The Power of Reasoning

How is one to define what “good” is by using their faculties of reasoning. Plato some how thought that reason could some-how transcend into the eternal realm of forms and see the form of goodness. For Plato this was his reference point to know the good, but the problem was the form had no contents.
Can one see what is “good” by watching the empirical world of physical actions?

The Atheist Philosopher Richard Taylor says in his book “Good and Evil”,

“A thing is not seen to be good by the bodily eye, this was perfectly obvious to Plato, as it has been to all-moral rationalists. We can with our eyes see things, but we cannot in that way see that they are good. So it must be by our reason that we somehow apprehend goodness.”

But Taylor goes on to say,

“Reason by itself can make no distinction whatsoever between what is good and what is not. Reason can only and within limits see what is, and can never declare whether it ought to be so”

Taylor is correct in his thinking and it has become known today as the naturalistic fallacy. This is trying to look at nature which is a description of what “is’ and conclude an “ought” in the process. Looking at nature tells us what “is’ happening, but it doesn’t tell us what we “ought” or “ought not” to do. You can not get an “ought” from an “is”.

As John Frame says “One can not draw moral conclusions from non-moral acts”. The problem is that observing facts of nature of which we are a part of does not reveal to us moral facts. The attempt to derive moral principles from impersonal realities is also a violation of logic. Facts can be learned through observation and the scientific method. But moral obligations cannot be seen and heard. They cannot be observed. So all we are doing is labeling impersonal matter with abstract concepts and what is the relationship between the rational and the irrational, nothing! They don’t connect in any rational way. Without a “norm” our concepts are just subjective thoughts floating in our heads relating to nothing.

One may deduce moral conclusions from moral facts, but not from non-moral facts.

I quote another thinker who I think puts an end to this question of whether “reason” can justify being moral or is able to find what is good without God,

"Any reason for being moral must be either a moral or a nonmoral reason. If it is moral, then it cannot really be a reason for being moral, since you would have to be already inside morality in order to accept it. A nonmoral reason, on the other hand, cannot be a reason for being moral; morality requires a purity of motive, a basically moral intentionality, and that is destroyed by any nonmoral inducement. Hence there can be no reason for being moral, and morality presents itself as an unmediated demand, a categorical imperative."

It seems that if we reject that we have been created inherently good and that reason can not find a reference point for defining the good, goodness must be subjective.
If morality become subjective to personal tastes and preferences then we are left with any of these options,

Subjectivism; the subjectivity of goodness and badness.
Emotivism; the reduction of goodness and badness to emotion.
Positivism; the idea that man posits values with his will, invents goodness and badness.
Cultural relativism, or conventionalism, the relativity of goodness and badness.
Historicism; the relativity of goodness and badness to time.
Utilitarianism; the reduction of goodness to utility, or efficiency.
Instinctualism; the reduction of goodness to biological instinct.
Hedonism; the reduction of goodness to pleasure.
Egotism; the reduction of goodness to enlightened selfishness.
Pragmatism; the weakness of goodness and the power of badness.
Intuitionalsim; based on ones gut feelings.
Rationalism; reduction to reasoning upon ones own reasons for his desires

Are we restricted in having to make goodness a subjective entity. Is goodness just an empty word that means this is what I feel and want? The Atheist Richard Dawkins says,
“There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference”.

Why be Moral at All?

Another question must be asked, if morality is reduced to the subjective and reason has no way of defining what is right or wrong “Why should we be moral at all?” Some might think because without it we can’t gain anything from this world, as our environment would be too dangerous for us to seek our desires. So it pays to live in an agreed upon social contract so that we can gain more than if we didn’t. But why should we be concerned about this? If there is no purpose for us being here or no correct way to function why should we care about others or whether we live or die. Why not live the ethics of the survival of the fittest and wipe every body else off the planet. In the end there really is no reason why we should be moral or why we have an obligation to respect others.

Moral systems

Some atheist have tried to come up with moral systems that respects peoples different views, but still bind each other to a moral system of principles. Its like being a moral relativist, but bound by an absolute ethical principle. But these principles fail because there is no definition of what “goodness” is. Some atheists like to think that the golden rule from the Bible can be easily adopted without holding on to a belief in God or in an objective standard.

But I don’t think it is possible. The golden rule being “Do unto others, what you would have done unto you”.
Vox Day makes a good point in his book “The Irrational Atheist”

The problem is that Christianity’s morality is not just based on the golden rule, which states that man should not do to others what he would not have them do to him. It is based on doing the Fathers perfect (God’s) objective, absolute moral will. And this standard seems to promote the highest ethical blessing to all people. But just stating the above cannot provide us with a functional moral system.
Obviously a moral system based on loving the Lord your God and obediently submitting your will to his is a very different moral system and far more objective one than the Golden rule, which is not only entirely subjective, but incapable of accounting for either rational calculation or human psychopathy. It provides no moral basis to criticize a man for crawling into Adriana’s bed unannounced so long as he harbors no desire to bar her from doing the same to him, and sanctions a thief to steal on the grounds of a belief that he wouldn’t miss that which was stolen were the thief himself the prospective victim. The Golden rule is also to easily transformed into the idea of doing unto others as you believe they wish to do unto you.

Do what you want just as long as you don’t hurt anyone?

Have you every heard the saying which tries to establish an ethical foundation that “You can do what you want just as long as you don’t hurt anyone.” I used to think that this claim was pretty hard to fault until I looked at the deeper motivations of those who proclaim this ethical stance. The first question that has always jumped into my mind has been “How does one define hurt”. Is morality just based on what reactions happen with physical actions or is morality a little deeper. Is the “hurt” defined from the physical, emotional or motive or all three? And who defines here?

In our society today many hold on to the ethical system of relativism. That there is no absolute moral standard that exists for all people. For many if this did exist it would imply God’s existence. So ethical relativism with its claim that nothing is ultimately good or evil has tried to make a moral system that is livable in a community of people.
But the problem seems to be that every time a relativist tries to live as if they have absolute freedom they slip in some universal moral standards refuting there relativism.
For example, look at the universal, which is implied at the end of these claims,

“People can do what they want, just as long as they don’t hurt anyone.”
“You can do whatever you want, as long as its between two consenting adults”
“You can do whatever you want, as long as its in the privacy of your own home.”
“People can believe and do whatever they want, they should just be tolerant of others views.”

The problem with all these statements is that they start of giving every one absolute freedom, due to their relativism. But because relativism is unlivable they impose an absolute universal claim that every one must abide by, as if it was a universal moral claim independent of any one’s subjective views. We see again that when you try and tinkle with reality, you will be brought back to it. This is the same with rejecting God, try and deny him, you will affirm him. Let’s try this standard and see if it works,

“A man slips a drug in to a women’s drink and she falls a sleep (date rape). He takes precautions so that there are no consequences to his violating her. He does all this without hurting her or even without her knowing what has taken place. Hasn’t the man been able to do what he wants without harming the women. Is this act ok with us? While the man does not physical hurt the women or psychologically harm her because he is gone before she wakes up, we all know this is wrong!” We know that her universal rights which cant be grounded from relativism have been violated. Rape is universally wrong!

Another example, if we were to work in a mental ward with patients who have lost their minds, would we consider it ok to mock them even if they couldn’t understand or relate to reality. To most of us we know our words wouldn’t physical hurt them or mentally hurt them, but it would still be wrong to degrade some ones universal rights of dignity and worth. In our conscious we just seem to know that is wrong and mean.

Another example, you can do whatever you like, between two consenting people. So would we agree to having pedophiles play with your kids?

My last example is if absolute freedom is ok, can one commit suicide? They would not be hurting any body else, but they would be hurting themselves and their friends. I think bringing harm to us is just as bad. We are killing life and a person, ourselves.

Some may object to my claim that rape is universally wrong, but does not the human heart seem even if it can’t justify why, feel that something’s are just objectively wrong.

Would raping or torturing a six-week-old baby for fun ever be right?
Would setting people on fire and gassing them because of their race ever be right?
If there is no such thing as an inherent moral order shaped in us the concept of a moral conscience is an illusion. The acts of nature and the power of reason are just indifferent as Richard Dawkins says. There is no ontological value to any of the actions they are just different. Also if one were to hold to an evolutionary theory of life, rape would have been a normal act along the process of survival. In fact if we are just an evolved animal we are no different from the instincts of the lower animal kingdom.

Is morality even a free rational choice?

Another problem that a rises from a naturalistic explanation of all reality with the story of evolution is that the concept of freewill is an illusion. Do you control your brain or does your brain control you? And what shaped your brain before you become the conscious you? The problem of determinism and randomize has been a major problem for atheistic philosophers.
When one denies that man has a soul and is just part of this materialistic world of matter, that being random atoms colliding together by impersonal forces (The process of evolving by cause and effect mutations) freewill soon vanishes. The idea of responsibility also becomes an illusion and also does the concept of good and evil, right and wrong. One is left stuck in the impersonal, irrational void of chance.

Determinism
The naturalistic view sees human beings as part of the machinery of the universe. In such a world every event is caused by preceding events, which in turn were caused by still earlier events, ad infinitum. Since man is part of this causal chain, his actions are also determined by antecedent causes. Some of these causes are the environment and man's genetic make - up. These are so determinative of what man does that no one could rightly say that a given human action could have been performed otherwise than it in fact was performed. Thus, according to determinism, Bob's sitting on the brown chair rather than the blue sofa is not a free choice but is fully determined by previous factors.
A contemporary example of naturalistic determinism is B F Skinner, the author of Beyond Freedom and Dignity and About Behaviorism. Skinner believes that all human behavior is completely controlled by genetic and environmental factors. These factors do not rule out the fact that human beings make choices; however, they do rule out the possibility that human choices are free. For Skinner, all human choices are determined by antecedent physical causes. Hence, man is viewed as an instrumental cause of his behavior. He is like a knife in the hands of a butcher or a hammer in the grip of a carpenter; he does not originate action but is the instrument through which some other agent performs the action.
A philosophical argument often given for determinism can be stated as follows. All human behavior is either completely uncaused, selfcaused, or caused by something external. Now human behavior cannot be uncaused, for nothing can happen without a cause, nothing cannot cause something. Human behavior cannot be self - caused either, for each act would have to exist prior to itself to cause itself, which is impossible. Thus the only alternative is that all human behavior must be completely caused by something external. Naturalistic determinists maintain that such things as heredity and environment are the external causes, whereas theistic determinists believe that God is the external cause of all human behavior.
There are several problems with this argument. First, the argument misinterprets self determinism as teaching that human acts cause themselves. Self determinists, for example, do not believe that the plays in a football game cause themselves. Rather they maintain that the players execute the plays in a football game. Indeed it is the players that choose to play the game. Thus the cause of a football game being played is to be found within the players of the game. Self determinists would not deny that outside factors, such as heredity, environment, or God, had any influence. However, they would maintain that any one of the people involved in the game could have decided not to play if they had chosen to do so.
Second, the argument for determinisim is self defeating. A determinist must contend that both he and the nondeterminist are determined to believe what they believe. Yet the determinist attempts to convince the nondeterminist that determinism is true and thus ought to be believed. However, on the basis of pure determinism "ought" has no meaning. For "ought" means "could have and should have done otherwise." But this is impossible according to determinism. A way around this objection is for the determinist to argue that he was determined to say that one ought to accept his view. However, his opponent can respond by saying that he was determined to accept a contrary view. Thus determinism cannot eliminate an opposing position. This allows the possibility for a free will position.
Third, and finally, if naturalistic determinism were true, it would be self defeating, false, or be no view at all. For in order to determine whether determinism was true there would need to be a rational basis for thought, otherwise no one could know what was true or false. But naturalistic determinists believe that all thought is the product of nonrational causes, such as the environment, thus making all thought nonrational. On this basis no one could ever know if determinism were true or not. And if one argued that determinism was true, then the position would be self defeating, for a truth claim is being made to the effect that no truth claims can be made. Now if determinism is false, then it can be rationally rejected and other positions considered. But if it is neither true or false, then it is no view at all, since no claim to truth is being made. In either case, naturalistic determinism could not reasonably be held to be true.

Indeterminism
This view contends that human behavior is totally uncaused. There are no antecedent or simultaneous causes of man's actions. Hence, all of man's acts are uncaused; hence, any given human act could have been otherwise. Some indeterminists extend their view beyond human affairs to the entire universe. In support of the indeterminacy of all events Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty is often invoked. This principle states that it is impossible to predict where a subatomic particle is and how fast it is moving at any given moment. Thus, it is argued, since subatomic events are inherently unpredictable, how much more so are complex human acts. From this they conclude that human and nonhuman events are uncaused. Two noted exponents of indeterminism are William James and Charles Peirce.
There are at least three problems with this view. First, Heisenberg's principle does not deal with causality but with predictability. Heisenberg maintained that the movement of subatomic particles was unpredictable and unmeasurable; he did not maintain that their movement was uncaused. Thus this principle cannot be used to support indeterminism. Second, indeterminism unreasonably denies the principle of causality, namely, that every event has a cause. Simply because one does not know what the cause is, is not proof that an event is not caused. Such lack of knowledge only reflects our ignorance. Third, indeterminism strips man of any responsible behavior. If human behavior is uncaused, then no one could be praised or blamed for anything he did. All human acts would be nonrational and nonmoral, thus no act could ever be a reasonable or responsible one.

Is value a property in matter?

The tittle of this section is asking the question “If all that exist is the world of physical matter (atoms and molecules in random motion), what then is value and instinct worth?” Does matter contain the property or quality, of value in it. I guess most people will answer no, value is a concept we give to something. I mean if all that exist is the material world of matter evolved from thousands of years for no objective reason, then all is matter. I can’t see why one piece of matter should have any more value than any other bit. Why should a human be more valuable than a tree if we are all part of the same thing? If things just have value because we vote that it does from conceptual changing views, how is this different than any other fantasy we invent. Do humans have a right to life, do they have instinct worth just because we think they do? Nature doesn’t seem to teach us this! If human are just evolved animals why cant we behavior like them?
Its important to answer these questions as the evils of the past will continue until people understand what humans are.

I would also add there is another problem with saying that concepts or thoughts are reducible to matter, atoms in motion. As thoughts and concepts are “of” or “about” things, which matter is not. And know one can find or see thoughts even if they could find a correspondence to brain patterns, they are different things. Another example is trying to work out how non-consciousness evolved into consciousness!

I would say that if humans have instinct value making them stand out from the rest of nature, then the human “form” must be imposed with intrinsic value. An eternal universal unchanging standard of value and worth that has been imposed into the form of “Personhood” which is seen in its fullness in it’s manifestation in the material body. Plato said “if matter has no form, it is meaningless matter”. I would agree with Plato and say that personhood has value and worth which is binding on all humans because we are made in the image of God. Therefore humans are valuable independent of peoples opinions.

Objective Morality

Any one who has spent some time at a University will have come across ethical discussion about Moral absolutes, Relativism and Postmodernism. For the rest of us relativism will be the ethical system that is the most held to in our society today, but not lived out very well. That’s because it is impossible to live it out when one person say’s what’s true for you is not true for me. But when that same person gets there wallet stolen they complain and want it back and cry it’s not fair, or just or right, implying by using those words that the other person is obligated to respond as they have they same morals.
Its one thing to think that we all make up our own ethical rights, but the truth is I believe we have awareness that there is objective morality. That being something’s are just right and wrong independent of people views on the matter.

The Philosopher William Lane Craig says,

“Every one of us guides his life, however inconsistently by a certain set of values. But are the values we hold dear and guide our lives by mere social conventions akin to driving on the left versus right hand side of the road or mere expressions of personal preferences akin to having a taste for certain foods rather than others? Or are they valid independently of our apprehension of them and if so, what is their foundation? Are there things, which I ought not to do, and other things, which I ought to do? Or is the sense of obligation a mere illusion due to sociological and psychological conditioning.”

What is your foundation for the existence of your ethical reasons? Are they social conventions, personal preferences or objective binding values.
Lets just try a few examples, If we lived in Germany backed by science and a large amount of people, would we agree that it was right for Hitler is burn and torture millions because they were considered to be inferior races? If that society said yes, would you agree to it?
Is what the majority says always right? The law may say abortion is ok, but does that make it right? What about personal expressions would you agree if some old man loved young boys or animals to sleep with that it would be ok? That if some people enjoy raping people, or killing innocent lives it’s ok to. Or that torturing babies for fun is ok.
Most of us who are not demented seem to have some understanding that something’s just seem that they are wrong and have nothing to do with personal preferences. Would you agree that touring babies for fun or raping them was ok ever? I would hope your answer is no. Some may say that it just goes against common sense, but what is common sense. Common sense is an agreed upon opinion, unless you want to affirm that there is an absolute moral law on our hearts that knows right from wrong.
Now some people will say, but people can do what ever they like as long as they don’t hurt others but that’s not the case as I shown. It just seems that we have some inner standard that we all have deep down that we use to judge our acts and choices by. But what is this foundation? One cannot just reject all God talks because you don’t like the idea that a God could exist. That just shows that you hold an absolute bias before rational evidence is given.

So what do we mean by an Objective moral Value, well to say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether any human being believes it to be so. That is if a bomb hit the world and all that was left were pedophiles or rapists would there actions still be objectively wrong? Similarly to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us independently of whether any human being believes them to be so.
For example to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still be wrong even if they brain washed every body else to think it was right.

My question is again “If you believe that objective morality exists, what is its foundation?" Is it to hard to think about, that we have to throw it on the too hard shelf? And walk back in to our contradictions of relativism. I don’t think so that’s why I push the challenge.

Ok, if God does not exist why do we think that every human being has objective moral value (human rights) Is this held from social conventions, human preferences?
As William Lane Craig says, On the naturalistic view, there’s nothing special about human beings. They’re just accidental byproducts of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust called planet earth doomed to perish”
The Atheist Richard Dawkins say’s of human worth “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference…We are machines for propagating DNA. From an atheist worldview to think that beings are special is to be guilty of specie-ism, an unjustified bias toward ones own species. From an evolution point of view all values are just by products of social biological evolution. Just adoption’s for survival. From an evolution point of view we have evolved by chance, all our thoughts and actions have been predetermined by prior causes, free-will is an illusion. In fact at times for the story of evolution rape and incest would have been the only options for survival and so also would have been killing off weaker inferior sick beings or animals. So how can we claim that there are objective morals? A naturalistic history of life does not seem to show the example.

Even if we could show that rape and incest and torture were not advantageous to us anymore, nothing from an atheist worldview can really say these acts are objectively wrong. Such behaviors go on all the time in the animal kingdom. From naturalism all our beliefs, not just our moral beliefs have been selected for survival, not for there truth-value.

Some Atheist philosophers try and say that objective moral properties just live in matter. But even if they did, there is no obligation why one must follow one or the other as they are there by chance and nature just “is’ there is no reason why we “ought” to have to follow on path and not the other. If nature is all there is we are free to have any of it and morality seems to be held in personal beings not impersonal matter.

If God does not exist why should we think that we have any moral obligations to do anything. Who or what imposes these moral duties upon us?
The question arises can we recognize the existence of objective moral values without reference to God? Is all life just an illusion of beliefs that we hold without any justification. Maybe the inner sense that we feel that there are acts that are absolutely wrong are because we have a moral law written from God on our hearts. This law is one mind who has put his laws in our subjective minds and hearts. And it’s justification that it is objective stands because it is independent of what any human being believes. It is also objective and true because it stands also outside of every human being in the mind of God requiring our obligation to follow it. It is also objective as this standard is eternal and does not change. Much pain and suffering comes when we chose to deny this norm. Deny the norm, and objective right and wrong vanish, human right’s vanish, and human dignity vanish. If you hold on to any of these but reject God you are basically holding on to an illusion.

Therefore,
1.If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2.Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore God exist.