The moral argument is sound

The Presumption Of God As The Only ExplanationThe burden of proof is on Pro to establish that objective morality only exists if God exists, my burden of proof is to undermine his arguments, and show why the conclusion has not been established by Pro. Even if we assume an objective standard independent of subjective moral wants, there is no reason given why it must be grounded in a necessarily existing conscious being engaged in a mental process. This seems to just be presumed without any solid warrant or justification. Moral philosophy has been done for a long time without appealing to God:"A common outlook amongst moral philosophers that I share, is that people have been doing moral philosophy without appealing to God for thousands of years. " - Philosopher, Shelly Kagan[1]On top of that, there are actually many objective Atheistic moral frameworks:"There are many different [Atheistic] objective moral systems, such as Objectivist morality, many variants of utilitarian morality, humanism (when not used with the evolutionary justification), and to a certain extent, rational pragmatism. " -François Tremblay[2]Pro must knock down all Atheistic accounts of morality in order to show that only God can account for such a phenomenon. My opponent's position in no way self-evident either:"There is no obvious contradiction between a strong commitment to moral realism and disbelief in God. That atheism and moral realism are in tension is a philosophical position that must be argued for. " - Jason Thibodeau[3]The Non-ArgumentThe nearest thing Pro gave to an argument for Premise 1, wasn't even an argument at all. It is as follows:"How do you even get morality from a mindless, purposeless, amoral universe? What does such a universe care about good or evil? If God does not exist where do our moral obligations come from? In an atheist universe where does the moral incentive come from to do anything against our own self-interests? " - ProHowever, questions are not arguments by their very nature:"Questions are not arguments, nor are announcements, complaints, compliments, or apologies"[4]Pro hasn't come close to meeting his burden of proof on Premise 1 of the argument. Does The Atheist Even Need To Account For Morality? Erik Wielenberg has argued that if morality is objective, the truth of moral statements could be non-contingent brute facts[7]. A brute fact, by definition, requires no explanation or grounding. Brute facts obtain without doing so in virtue of any other facts obtaining. Additionally: “Brute facts, like volcanic eruptions or the number of electrons in a hydrogen atom, do not depend for their existence on human conventions or institutions; institutional facts, like those involving money, property, government, marriage, promising, games, etc. , do so depend. Anscombe used ‘brute’ in this sense in her ‘On Brute Facts,’ Analysis 18 (1958), and Searle introduced ‘institutional’ as a contrasting term, in ‘What is a Speech Act’ in Max Black (ed. ), Philosophy in America 1965, and has elaborated on this distinction in later publications . . . " - The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (2005), p. 88[8] The above suggests that the arguments involving Atheists not being able to account for objective morals may be just be nothing more than question begging. It assumes that if objective morality exists, it would have to be grounded in something, or accounted for in the first place. Pro has given us absolutely no reason to believe this is even required. Does Moral Relativism Contradict The Laws Of Logic? Pro makes the following statement:"He made the point that a relativist can only talk about his relativism with arguments but he can’t put his relativism in practice because relativism claims its statements about goodness are true, not relative, even if they don’t apply to everyone. " - ProThe problem with this statement is one can make truth claims about the concept of goodness, without having to claim that a certain thing is objectively good or evil. One can say that it is true that there is no such things as action A being objectively good, or objectively evil. My opponent also lists some laws of logic, then claims that Moral Relativism goes against them. His support for this revolves around the argument that one society may claim that abortion is moral, and the other claim that it is immoral. Both of these statements cannot be objectively true, I agree. If Moral Relativism is true however, then each society would have collectively subjective moral values, that don't involve any ontological contradiction in the slightest. Society A could have a collectively subjective moral code that is different than society B, but as long as there is no objective contradiction, then no laws of logic are violated by Moral Relativism. Pro then quotes Michael Robinson as saying that Moral Relativism presupposes:"it is morally permissible to absolutely deny absolute moral values. "First of all, the source he used to for the quote is faulty as it does not lead to an active website with relevant information. Besides that, it is in not clear that the Moral Relativist is committed to the position that it is objectively morally permissible to deny objective morality. The Moral Relativist would believe it is acceptable to deny objective morality according to his/ her personal compass: We all self-evidently have collectively shared subjective moral compasses. They also obviously entail different relative degrees, and there is no evidence of a fixed objective degree. You might think killing is wrong, but do you think it is as wrong as me? Some people would kill the man who they caught raping their wife, others would just attempt to restrain the rapist somehow and call the police. Basically, once you qualify the difference between "objective" and "subjective" in this context, it becomes quite clear that there is no contradiction at all implied by my opponent's argument in this regard. The Non-SequiturPro asks us to imagine a culture or society that adopted lying as the norm. However, all we have to do is look at the society we have. Lying is the norm in the government. Lying is the norm when evidence mounts up that someone did something bad. A child's natural reaction when confronted with a question regarding guilt, is to deny it. We all remember doing this. Either way, even if one could not imagine a society where lying was the "norm" (whatever that specifically means), it wouldn't follow from this, that morals are in fact objective. Thus, the argument from my opponent is a non-sequitur. Meaning And Objective ValueThe argument was made from the other side that meaning speaks of objective values. However, the exact opposite is true. Meaning is subjective by essence:"[T]he end, purpose, or significance of something: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of thisintrusion? "[5]Purpose and significance are subjective, and experience confirms this. The locket my grandmother gave me has significance to me, but it does not have significance to someone else for example. So, the argument that meaning speaks of objective values is shaky at best. We make our own meaning, and our own purpose. Sometimes it is individually shared, or collectively shared. The point is that we are left without any solid reason to believe that morality is universally objective; Pro has failed in his task. The Euthyphro DilemmaIs rape wrong because God does not condone it, or does God not condone rape because it is already wrong? If God does not condone rape because it is already wrong, then a problem arises for the Theist: "If a good God prohibits torture he does so because torture is intrinsically wrong, not merely because he declares torture to be wrong by fiat. But if torture is intrinsically wrong, then it is wrong regardless of whether or not God exists. " - Keith Augustine[6]If the theist claims that rape is prohibited because God does not allow it, then if God condoned raping innocent children it would be good. However, this would stomp on the same intuitions the Theist tries to claim supports objective morality in the first place. The theist could say that this is a false dilemma, as goodness itself would be grounded in God's nature. However:"While some retort that goodness flows from God's nature, this merely changes the form of the dilemma: Is compassion good because it is a part of God's nature, or is compassion a part of God's nature because it is already good? The first option produces problems parallel to those for DCT. If malice were a part of God's nature, for instance, it is doubtful that malice would automatically be good. If there are any objective moral standards at all, then a god can be either good or evil, and the assessment of a god's character would depend upon appealing to standards independent of any god's commands, opinions, statements, nature, or character. " - Keith AugustineIt seems as if the problem is not grounding morality under Atheism, it is grounding morality under Theism. ConclusionPro has the burden of proof to establish that The Moral Argument is a sound argument, and demonstrates that God does indeed exist. Not only did Pro fail to establish the first premise, but the second premise was not close to sufficiently supported. I also showed an inherent problem with trying to ground morality in God. Sources[1] You-Tube [watch? v=SiJnCQuPiuo][2] . http://www.strongatheism.net...[3] . http://www.infidels.org...[4] panthers. moundsparkacademy. org/~mvergin/. .. /a_little_logic. doc[5] . http://dictionary.reference.com...[6] . http://www.infidels.org...[7] . http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.ca...[8] . http://greatcloud.wordpress.com...