Objective Moral Values and Duties Show that God Exists

My opponent has pointed out difficulties in moral reasoning, but this by no means calls into question the objectivity of morality. It is true that it is difficult to determine what is the right or wrong thing to do in certain circumstances, but that difficulty doesn"t mean that there is no right or wrong. In truth, the fact that there is a difficulty at all shows that there really is a "right" that we are trying to achieve. If there were no difference between right and wrong, then there would be no difficulty. It would not matter what you chose. Largely his points engage with moral *epistemology* (how we come to *know* right from wrong) rather than moral *ontology* (how right and wrong come to *be* right and wrong). For this reason it simply isn"t relevant that people in various cultures or at various times have come to different moral conclusions. That fact alone doesn"t do anything to undermine the objectivity of morality. Think of the sciences. Various people at various times throughout the centuries have come to very different conclusions about the nature of our universe. Does that count as evidence that our universe does not objectively exist? Not at all! In the same way, the mere fact that people come to different moral conclusions does nothing to say that morality is not objective. Any attempt to direct the focus of this question to grey areas or special circumstances quite misses the point. If objective moral values and duties do not exist, then there is no difference between right and wrong in *any* circumstance. I"ve heard it said of subjective morality, "I like to eat vegetables, you like to eat meat. Hitler likes to kill people, and I like to save them. What difference does any of it make?" If there are no objective moral values, then there is simply no moral difference between murdering someone and saving them. Consider the commendation from my opponent that, "everyone else should follow their moral code." Consider his statement that, "a perfect moral system would probably have rules such as "do not murder" or "do not steal."" These are appeals to objective morality! They underlie moral convictions of equality and the compassion for one"s neighbor, but these are just the sort of convictions that my opponent is arguing do not exist. If objective moral values and duties do not exist, then "do not murder" is morally equivalent to "do murder". Even in my opponent"s attempt to undermine objective moral values, he finds himself appealing to those same values. This is because objective moral values are so intrinsic to our experience that they cannot be denied. We experience right and wrong every day, and their existence is obvious to us. As I have stated above, my opponent has given us no reason to doubt this every day experience. My opponent is absolutely correct in his final point. The question comes down to whether or not there is such a thing as objective morality. Do you believe that there are some acts that are truly heinous and immoral? Is it really wrong to rape little children, or are we just pretending that it is? Is it really commendable to be tolerant and compassionate, or might someone just as well be bigoted and hateful? If you agree with me that acts such as child abuse and rape are really wrong, then you agree with me that at least some objective moral values and duties exist. As I have shown in my opening argument, this entails that God exists.