The moral argument for God goes like this:
Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
As an atheist I think there are problems with both premises. But I primarily want to ask how Christians might defend the second premise. How do you know that morality is objective in the absolute sense? How did you arrive at that conclusion? I grant that there is a sense in which morality is objective, but in what sense is it objective? Is it objective in the absolute sense, similar to, say, the laws of physics or logic? Or is it objective in the sense that all other human constructs are objective, similar to traffic laws or the laws that govern various institutions? I am interested in both how you answer this question and how you arrived at that conclusion. Because as I observe morality, it seems very much to operate like a human construct, and very much not like an objective fact about reality. What other objective, absolute fact about reality is able to vary so widely depending on the moral framework constructed? Morality seems very much dependent on the subject, which is the very definition of subjective. So I hear Christians make the claim in the moral argument for God that morality is objective in the absolute sense, and I wonder how they support that claim, when everything we observe about morality seems to indicate otherwise.
Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
As an atheist I think there are problems with both premises. But I primarily want to ask how Christians might defend the second premise. How do you know that morality is objective in the absolute sense? How did you arrive at that conclusion? I grant that there is a sense in which morality is objective, but in what sense is it objective? Is it objective in the absolute sense, similar to, say, the laws of physics or logic? Or is it objective in the sense that all other human constructs are objective, similar to traffic laws or the laws that govern various institutions? I am interested in both how you answer this question and how you arrived at that conclusion. Because as I observe morality, it seems very much to operate like a human construct, and very much not like an objective fact about reality. What other objective, absolute fact about reality is able to vary so widely depending on the moral framework constructed? Morality seems very much dependent on the subject, which is the very definition of subjective. So I hear Christians make the claim in the moral argument for God that morality is objective in the absolute sense, and I wonder how they support that claim, when everything we observe about morality seems to indicate otherwise.
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