Secular morality is superior to religious morality

The assumptions inherent within the resolution as stated are self-refuting.So how did my opponent respond to this? First he blithely ignored my own analogy in favor of his own. His analogy being a comparison between evidence-based medicine and anecdotal-based medicine. He argues that, although both are imperfect systems, one of them makes materially better predictions with respect to medicine proper. You’ll remember that my analogy was that the resolution is tantamount to asking whether 3 or 5 was a superior answer to the equation 2+2. Indeed, these analogies are categorically different. So we are then tasked to discern which category morality falls under: A material system that can be tested via the scientific method of observation and replication? Or a system that is axiomatic in nature and deals solely with the abstract?It clearly falls in the latter, inasmuch as a moral system intends to tell us what is “right” and what is “wrong.” That is to say, it is seeking to affirm the actual existence of abstract conceptual rules that are obligatory and binding. Indeed, my opponent knows that morality is axiomatic in nature because he suspects that we must first assume the objectivity of some metric (hopefully uncontroversial) like “well-being” before we can even begin to make moral discernments. If we challenged that assumption and asked for evidence as to why “well-being” matters or why I should care about “human flourishing” or any of the other assumptions that are likely to follow, we cannot begin making moral discernments.Furthermore, if both these systems of morality are wrong or imperfect, we MUST be able to demonstrate why and how they are wrong. The only way to prove that they are wrong is to assume the existence of some other moral metric that arbitrates between these abstract conceptual rules. These are not things we can view under a telescope or replicate in a lab. These are abstract rules that intend to say something about what people ought and oughtn’t do. If my opponent cannot furnish this alternative moral metric that he is using to discern the value of the moral systems in question, then he has failed to even begin to make a case and the resolution remains meaningless or inscrutable.Additionally my opponent makes the wildly obscure argument that we know slavery is wrong because we have somehow happened upon it through civilized, rational discourse. This is historically myopic. In fact, more slavery exists today than there ever did before the 19th century. No, instead my opponent is clinging to some privileged groupthink, where now since a significant amount of people in the developed world believe it, it just so mustest be the case. If slavery is wrong, WHY is it wrong? That is what matters. Ironically, my opponent defies his own hallow dictum “Proposing the existence of entities we don't know exist actually makes an explanation less likely than one that doesn't require such entities.” Believe it or not, saying slavery is “wrong” is asserting the existence of an abstract conceptual entity that purports to say something authoritative about what others ought to do. But how do we KNOW this to exist? Has it been measured in the lab? What is its approximate weight? Does it exist independent of human minds? Why should we care?So far as I can see, my opponent has not even yet sufficiently established a basis whereby he can even begin to make assessments regarding the superiority of these two disparate systems.Morality is, in a nutshell, what defines right and wrong behavior. Judgment regarding the qualitative state of superiority with respect to two disparate moral frameworks is either inscrutable or firmly in the favor of a religious framework.So what did my opponent do with this? Here he attempted to define morality to favor his presupposition. I reject that. Morality is not health, well-being, pleasure, suffering, waffle or eggs. My opponent has already admitted that morality is not any of these things because he has already stated that there are no perfect systems. In which case, it fails the law of identity. Morality /= to any of the aforesaid premises. My opponent has stated that we must choose some neutral ground to start on because there really is no such thing as absolute morality (or any evidence for it). But if morality is not absolute then it is not real. Morality would not exist outside of human apprehension and thus would be no more meaningful than a person’s favorite color. If my opponent believes there is no such thing as “actual” morality, then asserting the superiority of one system over another is even more inscrutable then it was before, because we would be tasked with trying to discern the superiority between two systems that don’t actually exist in any meaningful way. Fortunately for him, there is no evidence for math or even the o-so-cherished science. You cannot prove math, science or even physical reality without first assuming both their existence and their reliability at producing true or verisimilitudinous results. This is because these are axiomatic. Morality is axiomatic and thus asserts its reality upon us without deference to evidence.My opponent then grossly misstates the value of making a distinction between moral epistemology and moral ontology. Moral epistemology is how we come to know of the existence of moral values and duties. Moral ontology says something about how it is possible for moral values and duties to actually exist. For instance, religious and secular morality alike may arrive at the conclusion that raping kids is wrong. How they came to know this truth may differ among those systems. Secular morality has no ability to say why this is ACTUALLY wrong. It can say it causes undue suffering. But it cannot justify the assumption that suffering is wrong. Suffering is a material fact, “wrongness” is an abstract qualitative description that has no ontological evidence within a secular framework. This is a problem, especially for my opponent who is so fond at disregarding that without evidence.ConclusionMy opponent has failed to produce the moral system that allows him to make qualitative distinctions regarding the superiority of these two disparate systems. He has (1) admitted that he does not believe an absolute moral system exists and yet (2) appealed to some ostensibly more superior morality when discerning the moral quality of religious and secular morality alike. My opponent cannot avail himself with demonstrably false analogies, as it is very clear that we are not dealing with a scientific hypothesis that can be dissected, observed and replicated. Instead, we are dealing with two disparate moral axioms that attempt to explain the seemingly objective nature of our moral experiences. To this point, my opponent has only risen high enough to admit his own fallacious petitio principii, and assert that secular morality is better because religious morality is wrong. We have not seen any evidence for this nor have we yet seen any sound philosophical arguments in its favor. This strikes me as exceptionally weak and I think our readers can see that. Furnish the framework that allows you to make qualitative moral assessments of two disparate moral axioms or admit that you have no grounds on which to purchase the claim you sought at first to prove.