The Moral Argument is Sound

Theoretical Moral ArgumentNecessity Claim (NC)On atheism, what grounds can we affirm the reality of morals? The great atheists Russell, Sartre and Nietzsche, have warned that with the death of God there are “altogether no moral truths.” Objective moral values and duties, that are valid and binding regardless of human opinion, would not exist and so there would be no basis for affirming or denying true moral worth or obligation, for true moral prescriptions requires a prescriber.If morals are subjective or unreal, then they're merely by-products of evolution. Since what justification is there for differential treatment of species? If evolution were run backwards, a different set of morals would arise maybe. So to think humans are special is to be guilty of speciesism, an unjustified bias towards one species over another.Animals kill, but they don't murder. What then is the basis of real morals on atheism? Who or what imposes true moral duties? The concept of moral obligation is unintelligible and merely relative apart from the concept of God. As the atheist Paul Kurtz says, "If the moral principles that govern our behavior are rooted in a habit and custom, feeling and fashion, then the rapist who chooses to flout the herd morality is doing nothing more serious than acting unfashionably."The issue before us isn’t whether we must believe in God to have moral lives, or if we can we formulate an ethics system without reference to God, and nor is the question can we recognize the existence of moral reality without reference to God? Moral ontology shouldn't be confused with our moral epistemology. I’m concerned with the former of these. See here for a logical distinction, http://www.debate.org...Such questions confuse God's existence with belief in God's existence. I’m only arguing that a necessarily existing standard is necessary for the existence of objective morality, and God is the least arbitrary and most plausible candidate.Theist and secular humanist alike, indeed everyone can appeal to their intuition of morals; for even the bible says God's law is "written on the hearts" of all men-- Christian or non-Christian. Thus the central question about morals concerns their ontological foundation, not how we can know them. It's not obvious to see that atheism provides an ontological foundation for objective morals, for our sense of morals on naturalism is only an illusion wrought by socio-biological conditioning.An objective moral prescriber is necessary for objective moral prescriptions, and an objective moral standard is necessary for objective moral values. God is a maximally great being, and since it's intuitively greater to be the standard of moral perfection rather than exemplify it, then it follows that God would be the moral standard were he to exist, which makes him uniquely qualified in issuing commands. Therefore, God is the most plausible and least arbitrary standard, necessary for moral reality. So the very paradigm or standard of morals, necessary for moral values, seems to be very much like what we mean by an all Good God who is all Love.True moral duty arises in response to an imperative issued from a competent authority. Who or what else is as qualified to issue moral commands which are valid and binding apart from any subjective opinion? Without God, we're simply left in moral anti-realism and nihilism.God's nature, if it exists, is necessary for objective morals, and if you separate God's essence from God, specifically his moral nature, then he's no longer God.Suppose a possible world in which God refrained from creating, in such a world there would never be other agents capable of moral action, & so no 'contra-Good' would emerge, and so no value scale would exist. Yet God would remain as a supreme reality. This is what's meant as objective. It's not until 'not-Good' emerges that an ontological value frame dawns. And I argue 'the Good' is God, a standard, by virtue of his axiological perfection. God then is the ontological grounds for morals, meaning God is (what Plato called) "the Good," the standard from which all other moral events, states are judged against; the very paradigm of what ought to be, if you will.Such a being is the most plausible and least arbitrary candidate for the necessary standard required for moral truths, for without such a being, where would true moral prescriptions and value arise? The theist has an answer, God, as the standard, is just as necessary for moral value (and therefore duty) as any standard is necessary for a value judgment. It’s like arguing,"If the Sun does not exist, then day & night as we know it doesn't exist;day & night as we know it exists;therefore the sun exists."Further God is not merely a subject, but a maximally great necessarily existing being. If God exists, he would exist in all possible worlds, which makes him not merely a subject of certain possible worlds, but rather an objective feature of all reality by virtue of his maximal greatness. So I affirm God exists necessarily and thus objectively.Factual Claim (FC)But now if moral truths don’t exist, then God doesn’t either. However we’ve good reasons to think objective moral truths do in fact exist. From which it follows that God exists. For it seems that our moral experience is on a par with our sensory experience. We perceive external truths just as we perceive the internal truth of morals. In moral experience we apprehend a realm of objective morals, just as in sensory experience we apprehend a realm of the physical world.There is therefore no more reason to deny moral objectivity than there is to deny the physical world. Literally, if you are skeptical of the objectivity of morals, then you ought to also doubt that you have a head! So in the absence of any type of defeater for both perceptions, we're rational to trust both types of our sense perceptions at least.Moreover, concerning the apprehension of objective moral truths, philosopher Michael Ruse affirms that "the man who says it's acceptable to rape a child is just as mistaken as saying 2+2=5!" Surely actions like rape aren't just socially unacceptable, they are moral abominations! People who fail to see this are simply morally handicapped and there's no reason to allow their impaired vision to call into question what we clearly see in our moral perception. Thus any arguments for moral nihilism will always include premises which are less obvious.Morals are necessarily true, but that doesn’t show they don’t need an explanation, 2 + 3 = 5 is necessarily because the Peano axioms are necessarily true. Necessarily, “no event precedes itself” because Temporal Becoming is real. So necessary truths can’t stand in relations of explanatory priority to one another, for that's implausible.The argument presented thus far can be formulated as follows, 1) If objective moral values and duties don’t exist, then God doesn’t exist (NC)2) Objective moral values and duties exist (FC)3) Therefore God existsPractical Moral ArgumentLastly, William James said, “practical arguments can be used only when theoretical arguments are insufficient to decide a question of urgent and pragmatic importance.” But a practical argument can also be used to back up or motivate the acceptance of a theoretical argument. To believe then, that God does not exist and there is thus no moral accountability is quite literally de-moralizing (a deterioration of moral motivation: it’s hard to do the right thing, and altruism in the face of meaningless morality is therefore undermined quite significantly when desire is taken into account. Theism therefore is a morally advantageous belief.) So within the absence of any atheistic moral ontology, theism provides both theoretical and practical grounds for belief in God and motivation to accept the theoretical arguments for God.