God Exists (Moral Argument)

My opponent has claimed that I gave no reason to think that objective moral values and duties cannot exist if God does not exist. You'll remember that I gave you the reason why this is the case (in other words, I substantiated this point). Measurements cannot have meaning unless there is a standard against which they are measured. One cannot commit a moral crime unless there is a moral law. My opponent has claimed that there can be an objective measure without an objective standard. This is nonsense. If he thinks that there is an objective basis for moral values and duties apart from God, then let him provide us with what he thinks can ground the reality of objective moral values and duties. He goes on to make the point that the moral argument does not give you specifics as to which God exists. This is irrelevant. The claim that I have made with the debate title is that "God exists". His point here would be like saying that I must provide you with the specific identity of a person in a room in order to tell you that the room is occupied. There are other arguments that can give you other qualities of God (such as his omniscience, his omnipotence, etc). The moral argument merely demonstrates that he must be morally perfect, in fact the very standard by which morality is measured. He must also be eternal and unchanging, as morality would not be objective if he were not. Finally he must be personal, as an impersonal being cannot impose moral duties on anyone. It would be a strange form of atheism that permits an eternally existing, unchanging, morally perfect, personal being who is the grounds for objective moral values and duties! My opponent also falls into a common trap. He seems to think that the different moral conclusions that people come to in some way indicates that there is no objective morality upon which their conclusions are based. This simply does not follow. Scientists come to different conclusions about the natural world, and this in no way indicates that there is no objective natural world upon which their conclusions are based. In the same way that scientists are still working with an objective subject matter even though they come to different scientific conclusions, so too are moral agents still working with an objective subject matter even when they come to different moral conclusions. Finally, my opponent makes the odd claim that since animals are not moral agents that therefore morality is not objective. This simply does not follow. Consider how radical this claim is. He is essentially saying that since there is no moral dimension to wolves killing and eating a baby deer, that therefore there is no moral dimension if my neighbor were to kill and eat the neighborhood children. I'm sure that my opponent would not state it so starkly, but this is the logical extension of his claim. My opponent has given us no reason to think that there is any potential basis for objective moral values and duties apart from God. He has given us two reasons to doubt the reality of objective moral values (difficulties in moral reasoning on the part of moral agents, and the amorality of animals), but neither seems to have any legs to it. If he is to defeat the moral argument, he must provide us some atheistic basis for objective moral values and duties and/or he must give us some good reason to think that objective moral values and duties do not exist. If he chooses to do the latter, then his reason to doubt objective moral values and duties must be more obviously true to us than our own personal experience of morality.