Can you be good without God? Let's find
out. Absolutely astounding! There you have it; undeniable proof that you can be good
without believing in God. But wait; the question isn't can you be good without
believing in God. The question is, can you be good without God? See, here's the
problem. If there is no God, what basis remains for objective good or bad, right
or wrong? If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist, and here's why.
Without some objective reference point, we have no way of saying that something
is really up or down. God's nature provides an objective reference point
for moral values. It's the standard against which all actions and decisions
are measured. But if there's no God, there's no objective reference point. All
we are left with is one person's viewpoint, which is no more valid than
anyone else's viewpoint. This kind of morality is subjective, not objective. It's
like a preference for strawberry ice cream; the preference is in the subject,
not the object, so it doesn't apply to other people. In the same way, subjective
morality applies only to the subject. It's not valid or binding for anyone
else. So in a world without God, there can be no evil and no good, nothing but blind,
pitiless indifference. God has expressed his moral nature to us as commands. These provide the basis for moral duties. For example, God's essential attribute of
love is expressed in his command to love your neighbor as yourself. This command provides a foundation upon which we can affirm the objective
goodness of generosity, self-sacrifice, and equality,
and we can condemn as objectively evil greed, abuse, and discrimination. This
raises a problem. Is something good just because God wills it, or does God will
something because it is good? The answer is: neither one. Rather, God wills something because he is good. God is the standard of moral values, just as a live musical performance is the standard for a high-fidelity recording. The
more a recording sounds like the original, the better it is. Likewise, the
more closely a moral action conforms to God's nature, the better it is.
But if atheism is true there is no ultimate standard, so there can be no
moral obligations or duties. Who or what lays such duties upon us? No one. Remember, for the atheist, humans are just accidents of nature, highly evolved
animals. But animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a cat
kills a mouse, it hasn't done anything morally wrong; the cat's just being a cat.
If God doesn't exist, we should view human behavior in the same way. No action should be considered morally right or wrong. But the problem is good and bad,
right and wrong, do exist. Just as our sense experience convinces us that the
physical world is objectively real, our moral experience convinces us that moral
values are objectively real. Every time you say hey that's not fair! That's wrong;
that's an injustice! You affirm your belief in the existence of objective
morals. We're well aware that child-abuse, racial discrimination, and terrorism are
wrong, for everybody, always. Is this just a personal preference or opinion? No.
The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is
just as mistaken as the man who says two plus two equals five. What all this
amounts to then is a moral argument for the existence of God. If God does not
exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. But objective moral values
and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists. Atheism fails to provide a foundation
for the moral reality every one of us experiences every day. In fact, the
existence of objective morality points us directly to the existence of God.
"just as our sense experience convinces us the physical world is objectivity real"
(I) Everything we experience is real.
(II) Our sense experience is sometimes painful
(III) Therefore pain is real
(IV) Therefore is every object that invokes pain real
ONLY IF WE KNEW THIS BEFORE
infographics make things trueeeeeee
Hold up... They use Michael Ruse for the quote about how there is an objective morality, and even note that he is an atheist... and then present the moral argument for God's existence as being simple and settled?
I have seen the moral argument for God's existence argued much better than this, and without basically straw manning everything to death.
It's tempting, on videos like this, to go into the comments and see the argument wars people are having about the video.
As much as I hate seeing that, I still dislike seeing "comments disabled" even more. Because they know videos like this will be torn apart in the comments and people will be arguing left and right, the last thing they need is some moderate or skeptic going into the comments for a second opinion.
Also, I don't know how hard it is to put together videos like this because I have no graphical design skills but the video looks nice and polished to me. That means someone actually spent a long time putting this video together, which makes me kinda sad.
My one true goal in life is to be the Internet antitheist polymath
Is that the sims theme tune in the background at the end?
Obviously we want to refute Dawkins because he represents the best and only possible description of "what atheists think." It's the apologetic equivalent of hitting the innermost ring in skee-ball.
Wait, so if subjectivism is bad, how do we objectively prove which god's set of morals is correct. After all I could worship a god who says that murder and theft is totally rad. According to this video my beliefs would thus be objective. However if I argue that 'good' is merely that which increases overall happiness, then my beliefs are subjective and worthless.