Theism offers a more likely context than atheism for affirming moral realism.

Ave (Apologies in advance for going out of order.) Atheism and moral realismThe whole purpose of mentioning the status of atheistic moral realism in philosophy was a direct response to his negative descriptions (“extremely hard to see”, “dire”, and so on). It’s hard to describe atheistic moral realism with those words in light of the evidence I provided. I wasn’t trying to make the argument that Pro thinks atheism and moral realism are logically incompatible. For that reason, it’s not pertinent to discuss point one any further.In my last round, I discussed the popularity of atheistic moral realism, and how its project has been continued up until the present day. This was meant to show that atheistic moral realism is a valid project, and isn’t truthfully described by Pro’s adjectives. In his second point, Pro compares this argument to saying that logical positivism wasn’t absurd because it was so popular when it was around. This objection isn’t analogous to my original point. Logical positivism was more or less a short fad [1]; Atheistic moral realism has been pursued for thousands of years [2]. When an idea is flawed and defective, it usually dies out after a while, like logical positivism. The fact that atheistic moral realism has been in metaethics for thousands of years, and enjoys support today, shows that it’s not in terrible condition as Pro portrays it. Pro’s analogy fails; Although we can both agree that logical positivism was very popular, it’s not a valid comparison because logical positivism was a short-lived fad, while atheistic moral realism has been around for thousands of years and has support today.I also didn’t see any response to my prima facie argument for atheistic moral realism. My argument was that, as naturalistic moral realists, we have to ground morality on the natural, which almost certainly exists, while theism has to ground morality on the supernatural, which has a very arguable and uncertain existence. This gives atheistic moral realism a prima facie advantage over theistic moral realism. Pro should have addressed this in point three rather than foreshadow his future arguments.Personal DignityThe issue raised by Pro is how atheism accounts for personhood. He tries to show it doesn’t by refuting typical atheistic accounts of consciousness like eliminativism, reductionism, and non-reductionism. However, these refutations are inadequate. As I pointed out in the last round, his argument against reductionism amounts to nothing more than an incredulous quote from a theistic philosopher. That's obviously not enough to establish that reductionism is an implausible account of consciousness. He says that eliminativism, which denies the existence of the mind, doesn't account for personal dignity. The problem with this argument is that eliminativism gets rid of these things in the first place. By denying persons, it also denies personal dignity. It doesn't try to solve the problem because it gets rid of it. Pro fails to explain why non-reductionist accounts of consciousness require epiphenomenalism. His arguments here are just too weak for anyone to accept.The purpose of mentioning that experiment was focused more on a probabilistic argument for reductionism. In regards to this, Pro doesn't attack my line of reasoning, so I don't consider this point to be addressed. Furthermore, I was not trying to refute all forms of dualism; It was a general case against dualism.Pro says a reductionist account of consciousness can explain the corresponding brain stain, but never what it feels like to be in that brain state. For example, it may explain the mental states behind seeing the color red, but it never explains why we feel a certain way when we see the color red. It may be true that qualia doesn't feel like a brain state, but that doesn't establish that qualia is not a brain state [3]. As an example, a glass of water does not seem like H20 molecules, yet that's exactly what it is. There aren't any conclusions to make from Pro's point that damage or help either side.Pro says that it's metaphysically possible for people to have the same brain states, yet experience an apple differently. From this, he concludes that reductionism is false. This argument, like the last one, doesn't have any non-question begging conclusions. It's only possible for people with the same brain states to experience an apple differently if reductionism is false. If reductionism is true, then it's metaphysically impossible for people with the same brain states to experience to see an apple differently. Pro is trying to prove reductionism wrong by supposing that it's possible for people with the same brain states to experience an apple differently, but this begs the question against reductionism in the first place.(I'm ignoring point 6 because he's responding to a particular "out" to his arguments, one which I'm not using.)PersonhoodI wasn't misconstruing any argument. The only "absurdity" and "unintelligibility" identified by Pro was that these things were floating around in some abstract space before people came around. I point out that this doesn't make something absurd by pointing to things which are obviously true. Pro says the difference is that counterfactuals don't need to be instantiated by people, but moral values do. I'm not sure what he means by this. The word "instantiated" refers to "coming into being". Necessary truths and values are never instantiated because they're necessary. Perhaps by "instantiated" he means "recognized", but this definition wouldn't help Pro's point. Pro brings up the open-question problem from the philosopher G.E. Moore. However, Pro's source notes a way that we can get out of this problem:"Another objection, made later in the century, said the argument cannot support Moore's conclusions about the distinctness of goodness as a property. Science, the objection runs, uncovers many non-analytic property identities; for example, water is identical to H2O even though the terms “water” and “H2O” are not synonymous. By analogy, the property of goodness could be identical to that of pleasure even if “good” and “pleasure” have different meanings."[4] Pro's opening round tried to refute atheistic moral realism by pointing out all of these necessary abstract truths have to supervene on life. However, this was refuted when I mentioned Ayn Rand's metaethics as well as evolutionary moral realism. Pro's original point, therefore, is not an attack on the plausibility of atheistic moral realism, but an attack on specific conceptions of atheistic moral realism. It therefore does nothing to establish the resolution.Pro challenges me to explain how the brains of humans come to know about moral truths on an evolutionary picture. This is actually very simple; Through our reason, we determine what is right and wrong. Moral truths are therefore determined by reason. Our reasoning comes from our cognitive faculties like the cerebrum. Recognition of moral truths comes when a species evolves with cognitive faculties that are sufficient for reasoning about the world. Before that, moral truths exist in the same way that counterfactual statements exist. A species evolves that can reason about the world, and then, through our reason, we recognize these moral truths. That's a very simple account of how humans come to know about moral truths through evolution. You might say it's implausible that we would evolve to have the right beliefs, but that's addressed in a different point.Cosmic CoincidencesLet's recall what Pro said in his opening statement. He said that we could have easily evolved brains which have different ideas on morality. This is argued to be plausible because our brains evolve for adaptation rather than truth. Therefore, Pro argues that it's implausible that we would have the brains which recognize the right moral truths. As an example, we could have easily evolved to think it's moral to kill our brothers and fertile daughters, like bees. Carefully note what Pro is saying here. We are supposed to doubt, on naturalism, that we would come to know moral truths, because our brains evolve based on adaptation, and it's implausible that we would evolve to recognize the right moral truths. My response to this argument was to point out that it's implausible that we would have correct beliefs about god by the same reasoning. Our brains evolve for adaptation rather than truth, so what's the probability that we would have brains which evolve to know true things about god? There are millions of different ways we could have evolved which would lead to false beliefs about god. Therefore, it's implausible that we would brains which recognize the right beliefs about god, like the statement "God is the basis of morality". (For those of you who would entertain the idea that god guided evolution to make us have true beliefs about him, consult my answer in the last round.) Pro's answer to this is completely unsatisfactory. He says he's not talking about truth, but only moral truth. Why does this distinction matter? In order for it to matter, Pro has to demonstrate that the reasoning he used on moral truth cannot be applied to truth itself as well. If he can't do this, then there's no reason to think that the reasoning he used about moral truth can't be used for truth itself as well. Pro never shows us why the reasoning he used to doubt moral truth can't be used to doubt truth itself. Since he hasn't done this, the dilemma hasn't been solved. (The remainder of this section is more or less a repetition of his earlier points, so I won't answer them.) Vale References http://www.arn.org...Kagan, Shelley. "Is God Necessary for Morality?" Lecture. Is God Necessary for Morality? YouTube. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com...;.Visual Reference Guides: Philosophy, pg 128http://plato.stanford.edu...