Atheism can not account for right and wrong

Thank you for your response. ::Responses:: >>>"My opponent denies that all moral systems provide an account for right and wrong, but does not give any sort of reasoning for why this is so. His "reason" for why it may be this way is that they do not accord with God's law. This may be compelling if God's law was the only system of morality, but it clearly is not."<<< My opponent says I don't give a reason and then states my reasoning in the same paragraph. Just wanted to point that out. For my opponent's sake I will give him another example, besides utilitarianism, that can explain my point. And again, the reason I did use utilitarianism as my main Atheistic moral system in which I was arguing against was because I know from previous debates that this is the moral system is which my opponent lives by. Back to the point, lets say there were a group of people who lived under the moral method of "act the best you can and do good things which benefit the majority of people." Well, I'll use the same illustration that I used before, Gandhi's way in doing this was by spreading peace, Hitler's way in doing this was ethnic cleansing. Now, which one is right? Under an Atheistic world view it would be the person's choice to decide whether they would follow Gandhi or Hitler. The person may choose Gandhi's view or Hitler's view, but no matter which one a person chooses they will both be considered morally right, since both Gandhi and Hitler were appealing to the Atheistic moral system listed above. Thus this moral system can not say what is wrong or what is right, therefor it CAN NOT account for MORALITY at all, because the moral system can not condemn something one has done as good or bad, as long as the person believes that what he/she is doing, is "acting the best he/she can and doing good things which benefit the majority of people." So now we must ask our selves, "then how can morals be accounted for." Well the answer must be God! An ultimate judge who has unquestionable authority and can actually say Hitler your wrong for what you did and Gandhi your right. No matter what the person says back, ONE way is the ONLY morally right way under God. Thus morals can be accounted for. This is why God's law is not just another form of moral relativism, because God is it's basis. >>>"If other moral systems exist (which you admit), then appeal to God is just one choice among many, and thus a form of moral relativism."<<< Other moral systems do exist, yes I do admit that. But, this doesn't mean they can ACCOUNT for morals! Just as I explained in my illustration above. And for my opponents two last arguments he has not even begun to EXPLAIN how morals can be accounted for under an Atheistic world view. I urge my opponent to do this next round! >>>"What you seem to miss is that :maximize probable benefit" should be understood empirically and thus be independent of relativistic challenges."<<< Ok fine, they have to be understood empirically. So? Explain to me why this makes it wrong for slavery to be immoral! Because I "don't understand." What did my opponent do? Exactly what I thought he would do, he added on to his explanation of utilitarianism; notice - I told the voters my opponent would result to this. Please, in order for this debate to be fair my opponent must explain himself completely, not just add little by little on to the explanation of his moral method so that what ever I said about utilitarianism carries no relevance into the next round, although this is not entirely the case. Also, it's not my job to remember everything you said in a debate I wasn't even in and haven't read in quite some time. >>>"You forgot things like stone homosexuals, take slaves, force conquered women to be your wives, murder babies, don't eat rabbits, and, of course, burn things each day as a sweet savour to the Lord..."<<< I fear to say that my opponent has not studied theology, I'm not going to debate this point because It is totally irrelevant to the resolution at hand. For this doesn't tell me or the voters why those morals are wrong! All you have done here is taken a cheap shot at the Bible without backing up what you said with any evidence, because as far as I know, things like force conquered women to be your wives or murder babies are things that God forbids. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Adequate Responses: [1] Appeal to God is a form of moral relativism. I have already answered this in my argument above. -------------------------------------------------- [2] All moral systems can account for right and wrong. I have already answered this in my argument above. --------------------------------------------------- [3] There is no (non-circular) reason why appeal to God's law is the "correct" moral system. You want to talk non-circular, just look at morals without God. For instance... 1) Why is stealing wrong? 2) Because its doesn't maximize probable benefit. 3) How does stealing not maximize probable benefit? (starts back at 1) Because your taking something away from someone that isn't yours, thus making it unbeneficial to the person who it is being stolen from, *also known as stealing*. Since this is true, there is a circle to Atheistic moral methods. --------------------------------------------------- There is NOT a circle with God's moral laws because all the morals are derived form him, thus there is a strict wrong or right answer to every human action. For instance... 1) why is stealing wrong? 2) Because God says in the 6 commandment not to. And rite there, is where all questions end. Now, people may ask why should I obey God, but then one is bringing up a whole different issue. --------------------------------------------------- [4] God is not even required for moral reasoning. 'I have never said' God is needed for moral reasoning, only that he is needed for morals to be accounted for. Sure people can make moral decisions, Hitler decided to murder six million Jews, and he believed he was right for doing so. Again, I am not saying God is needed for moral reasoning! ---------------------------------------------------- [5] He must show that moral relativism is an incorrect framework. It is incorrect because it can not account for morals. I have already explained this in the argument above. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Rap Up: In conclusion my opponent has again, FAILED, to show HOW Atheistic moral systems can account for morality. For instance my opponent says "... it is very clear that the every conception of right and wrong are entirely dependent upon the moral system one adopts." Ok fine, if the moral method that one adopts is "act the best you can and do good things which benefit the majority of people," then yes spreading peace would be the right thing to do, as long as that is the way in which one VIWED that moral method. But, it would also be right for someone to murder 6 million Jews if thats the way one VIEWED that moral method. Thus, this Atheistic moral system can NOT ACCOUNT for what is truly right or wrong. It depends on how one applies the moral method to one's life whether it is 'genocidal' or 'peace.' So my opponent can't just claim that right and wrong are based off the moral system that one chooses, if it is Atheistic, since those moral systems are not absolute and totally rely on the the way a person applies the moral method to ones life. Thus all Atheistic moral methods can not account for what is right or wrong! Requirements for my opponent... 1 Explain why it is wrong for slavery under utilitarianism. 2 HOW can Atheism ACCOUNT for morality? EXPLAIN more than just because its derived from the Atheistic moral method! 3 Explain why these things are wrong... "things like stone homosexuals, take slaves, force conquered women to be your wives, murder