God is the best explanation for morality

My thanks to kohai for initiating this debate challenge. Ethical philosophy is one of my favourite subjects, and as such it's a pleasure to be participating in this debate.In this debate I will be arguing for one major contention: God is the best explanation of morality. By that, I mean that the existence of objective moral facts is best explained by positing the existence of a supreme being. By "best explanation." I mean it is superior to competing theories in terms of its explanatory scope, explanatory power, plausibility, less ad hocness, accord with already accepted beliefs, and comparative superiority. [1] In order to win this debate, Con must argue the negative of the resolution, namely, that God is not the best explanation for morality. It is therefore not enough that Con just refute my arguments -- he has to show how a competing explanation is better than the theistic explanation.I will be defending the following argument:1. If objective moral facts exist, then God exists.2. Objective moral facs exist.3. Therefore, God exists. By "objective," I refer to the state of being true regardless of human opinion. For example, to say that X (Say, torturing babies for fun) is wrong is to say that "it is wrong for anyone to do X, that X is universally undesirable, that it is wrong to do X even if a person finds pleasure in doing it, and that everyone ought to refrain from doing X." [2] By "moral facts," I refer to both values and duties.Defense of Premise 1According to the first premise, if there are objective moral facts, then these moral facts have their foundation in the nature of God. This is a conditional statement which describes the entailment relationship between objective morality and God.Morality is prescriptive and is expressed to us in the form of statements such as “Do not lie” and “Do not murder." These statements carry with them a degree of incumbency – that is to say, they communicate commands to us. Both commands and communication, however, can only originate from an intelligent mind. This mind must additionally be a competent authority in order for its objective commands to be binding on us. Therefore, moral facts require the existence of a supreme legislator who issues these commands to us. As Richard Taylor writes:"A duty is something that is owed... But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as a duty in isolation.... the concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone." [3]If objective moral facts exist, it therefore seems plausible to think that God serves as their ground. Defense of Premise 2The second premise of the moral argument is often the premise of choice that detractors of the moral argument criticize. Though it seems perfectly reasonable to affirm that objective moral facts exist, many go to great lengths to deny their existence. The existence of objective moral facts are what philosophers call a "properly basic truth." Paul Copan writes:"[O]bjective moral values are properly basic and undeniable; those who reject them are failing to function properly. There are some beliefs that (a) we are justified in holding (we are doing our epistemic duty with respect to these beliefs) and (b) are not based on or inferred from other beliefs... To reject such basic beliefs would do serious damage to our noetric structure. Such beliefs are properly basic." [4] In other words, moral truths are basic truths which are discovered, as opposed to invented.Consider the statement "It is wrong to torture babies for fun." Is that an objectively true statement? If it's not, then why not? Consider the following popular skeptical counterargument:"People hold different moral viewpoints. Therefore, morality is relative." This does nothing to show the subjectivity of morality anymore than the fact that people hold different scientific viewpoints shows that science is relative. Simply because people disagree about an issue doesn't mean that said issue is itself relative. Moreover, most moral disagreement arises not in the area of values, butthe underlying facts. Consider the abortion debate for instance. Both sides affirm the principle “Do not murder an innocent human being” to be true. The point of disagreement is thus not over moral principles, but the factual issue of what constitutes a human being. Underlying this objection is an ethical philosophy known as normative moral relativism. According to NMR, moral facts are relative to an individual/culture. Ther are no objective moral truths. Unfortunately, this ethical philosophy faces a number of serious problems.1. Moral judgement becomes impossibleConsider the following moral judgements: "It's wrong to deny civil rights to African Americans," "Nazi Germany was wrong in perpetrating the Holocaust," "Mother Teresa was a virtious woman." All of these are moral judgements, they make a claim on the morality of some action of person. However, moral relativism renders all of these to be false in the objective sense. On relativism, it's not really wrong to lynch homosexuals, it's just your opinion, or your culture's opinion. On relativism, the culture which engages in ethnic cleansing is morally equivalent to a culture which recognizes the civil rights of minorities. But this is absurd. If we are to make sense of our everyday moral judgements, then we must abandon relativism.2. Moral discourse becomes impossible If moral statements were the equivalent of preference claims such as “I like vanilla ice cream,” then moral discourse becomes impossible. Suppose that two people have a disagreement over some issue. Since relativism alleges that moral utterances do nothing more than express one's person opinion on a specific issue, then said persons are doing nothing but informing each other of their opinions. There is thus no substantive discourse going on. Statements such as “Murder is wrong” are translated to mean “I don't like murder” are neither true or false in a moral way. Moral discourse is thus reduced to a shouting match3. Moral relativism is counterintuitive The idea that morality is dependent on either the person or the subject leads to a variety of counterintuitive positions. For instance, the statement “Torturing babies for fun is wrong” is not not a moral fact, neither is “Be kind to one another.” These propositions, however, seem to express true moral facts. Why should we accept relativism when it leads to conclusions that we know to be false? As Tim Keller puts it, “"If a premise ('There is no God') leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ('Napalming babies is culturally relative'), then why not change the premise?" [5]So why think moral objectivism is superior? Well, it affirms all three facts of our moral experience which relativism must deny. It allows us to make meaningful moral judgements, moral comparisions, and it allows us to engage in legitimate moral discourse. This is because objectivism recognizes that right and wrong really do exist, and that people and their actions can be judged according to a standard. This is best in accords with what we observe to be true about our moral experience, and hence moral objectivism is the best explanation for morality.With that, I turn it over to my opponent for his counterarguments. ________Sources1. J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers, Grove, IL: Intervarsity. 2003) 622. Hadley Arkes, First Things (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1986) p.24 3. Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Pentice-Hall, 1985) 834. Paul Copan, "Hume and the Moral Argument" in James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothius (eds), In Defense of Natural Theology (Downers Grove, IL: 2005) 2135. Timothy J. Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York, NY: Dutton. 2008) 156