Objective Morality is not God's Work

According to my opponent, there’s nothing wrong with slanting a debate by pre-emptively introducing your own extensions of your opponent’s argument. I would like my audience to understand the fallacy that lies behind attacking of a straw man. If my opponent cannot admit that this is indeed what he has done then he sacrifices his integrity for the sake of being in the right. I would not throw onto my opponent the views of C.S. Lewis, for example, and yet my opponent has done exactly that by throwing the stigmatized term atheism into the fray. I have not denied the existence of god(s) and atheism is thus inappropriate. Moral Values—Naturalism Explained My opponent’s claim that I have so far failed to provide a strong case for the origin of human values by naturalism is fair. He has rightfully asked me “What grounds these values?” and I will answer it to the best of my abilities. He also asks “Why is survival good” and I will address this query as well. Existence is all we can know. We cannot understand a state of non-existence. Our functional understanding of survival is experience by sensation, namely via pain or pleasure. We cannot deny our natural aversion to pain or attraction to pleasure. How are these derived? Is it because a Creator decreed them as such, or because they have developed as measures of our livelihood? This is the core question at hand. Why is it that eating food is good? Has God built as an inherit value that all humans should accept as their moral standard? Is God truly a satisfying answer to our need to eat and our enjoyment of it? I believe that it makes far more sense to say that there is a direct correlation between pleasure and survival based on the logic it merits. It makes sense that I’d enjoy doing something that furthers my life. It makes sense that I’d avoid doing anything harmful to my health. This leads me to my opponent’s second question, “Why is survival good.” I must essentially explain that the slow, gradual coming of humanity gave birth to morality, a morality that has been versed in many forms but always come back to the human being as a starting point. How did we ever arrive at a concept of good and bad? Somehow a contrast evolved, one that differentiates between actions that are beneficial and those that are harmful. This is morality at its core—the distinction between pain and pleasure. My opponent’s question could also be phrased as ‘why is survival our standard of morality’, and I reason that it is so because we fear the alternative, Epistemology—One Cannot Know Without Having First Sensed How do I know that knowledge is derived empirically? How do I know anything? This may as well be our starting point. Everything I know stems from an initial observation. To claim that all knowledge is derived empirically is absolutely an empirical derivation. I would have zero concepts of epistemology had I been born without any senses. I wouldn’t even have a concept of self. The only manner in which we can establish knowledge is through the contrasting of ourselves from our environment. My opponent wouldn’t know what a god was if he’d been born without sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste. His mind would be much like a caterpillar’s cocoon, a shell from which he would never erupt. Our sense of self, and in fact, our sense of everything, depends entirely on the first realization that we are different than our environment. In short, every belief we hold relies on prior premises, which rely on observations of our natural world. I look forward to reading my opponent’s rebuttal on this matter. Blank Moral Check Why is it so absurd to suggest that value can come from a valueless process? Why must a blueprint exist? Who conceived the idea of value? Man did. Who is continually re-writing the meanings of virtue and value? Man. Our morality is an ever-changing facet of human relations that has dynamically changed throughout the years. Some cultures of our past saw human sacrifice as the ultimate divine offering, something that I’m sure my opponent would agree as being despicable. Why can man continually re-vamp everything that we know to be good? The answer is because he has a blank slate to work with. The standards of morality that he ultimately should follow, however, are objective in that he cannot escape the necessity of his survival. This perspective doesn’t come out of thin air, but rather from our existence itself--it is the moral standard the objective ethics that I have outlined thus far. God Best Explains Moral Duties “To define God as indefinable is to engage in an act of definition, and hence God cannot be defined as indefinable.” That’s quite true. Considering that this was a parting quaint comment of mine this should be ignored by our audience. I was hoping you’d assimilate it with Bertrand’s Paradox, and I’m sure that it has some philosophical appeal to you. “This {the need to survive} is inadequate as a ground of objective moral duties.” Why? You claim that it is sufficient for the individual, but not for our moral obligations/duties to others. However, I’ve already put forward the idea that our survival as individuals is bolstered by a harmonious society. Overpopulation will put an end to this. People already fight for scraps of food around the world, and it’s only going to worsen with time. When people become desperate—and I mean emaciated hulks of skin and bones—they will do anything for food. Even one’s mother is not safe in the direst of situations. As happy as we may be in a society with others when the supermarkets are open, we are ultimately guided by the moral standard of survival. Koukl and Beckwith Here is your prior moral notion: we exist. All that follows is a necessity of the continuation of that existence. Morality and Free Will Con has argued that naturalism does not allow for free will, and I will argue that it doesn’t matter for our purposes. I have put forth the notion that we do not get to choose the fact of our existence. I had no say in the matter of my creation. Everything else that comes after is the consequence of the pleasure/pain dichotomy. I do not mean to say that we are not free to act against our standard, but that this will almost always be unpleasant. I understand the nature of my opponent’s free will dilemma and it seems he’s concerned with whether free will could have been derived without external influences. This should be addressed in a different debate. We don’t have the space to give it its proper due. If my opponent consents, I will construct such a debate next week and name him as the opponent. Conclusion I would like to thank my opponent for this debate. He has taught me much and I truly appreciate it. I hope that he hasn’t taken my inquisitive arguing as a portrayal of arrogance. I respect him for his ideas and will gladly engage him in further contests. I urge our audience to use reason in their decision. My opponent uses an unknowable entity as his explanation for the existence of objective morality, but he is only fitting what he has observed to a construct that has no empirical worth. It’s akin to the watchmaker argument, to say that there must be a creator for the existing of morality. He cannot show you God, only his supposed work. I aimed to do better than this and it will be up to our audience to judge whether I succeeded. I argued that we should look at the facts of life and use them to establish a foundation for objective morality. That we are driven to survive cannot be refuted, and so this should be the standard for all morality. I have chosen to believe in what I have observed instead of using a maligned cause and effect approach that my opponent touted as his banner. He argues that our moral ends must have a creator, that they would be worthless to us if they didn’t. However, reason has paved my way to believing otherwise: the only standard that can ever be allowed is my own existence, for it is all that I have.