Resolved : A Christian God is necessary in order for objective morality to exist.

Rebuttals and rebuilding arguments R1) Without God Morality does not exist at allThis is where my adversary fails to understand my argument. He is assuming God is the only basis for objective morality, but if there is another way to gauge how objective morality can be weighed then objective morality can exist without God. His logic is as followsP1) Objective morality exists within the worldP2) Morality cannot exist without God because God is the only way to gauge morality C) God exists because morality existsGranted this entire premise is false. His first assertion is actually wrong in every possible way. I will quote him on this directly. " My argument is that, without God, morality does not exist at all "Then he follows up with this" An atheist cannot act morally"Both of these assertions are the ramblings of an indoctrinated person brought up in the church. Morality literally by definition is as follows. morality - particular moral principles or rules of conduct [1]Any culture can have their own rules of conduct and moral principles, so yes an atheist can act morally according to those guidelines. Stating that no morality exists without God is a baseless assertion and is just flat wrong, it is also ignorant. That was going to be the original context of the debate, but it would require such little effort that I gave him the edge of objective morality. Thus far he has not even argued that objective morality cannot exist without God, but morality itself cannot exist without God. This entire conclusion is false and utter nonsense. Morality can exist and does exist without God, the question is whether it is objective or subjective and how we define objective. As my adversary asserts, what is moral in certain nations often ties in with law. This is not always the case but it can tend to be the case in a lot of areas. What is moral is a question of what is right or wrong, that is generally what the law is based off of. So the law itself follows and abides by what the nation or culture perceives to be right and wrong. There are objective facts about what are right and wrong that differ from nation and culture. Certain acts in america are considered taboo, while in Africa they could be considered fine. Incest, Pedophilia, etc. So there are objective moral facts that exist within different nations and cultures, but the question is whether those objective facts are really objective because they differ. He is asking the wrong question and defending the wrong premise, instead of asking how can objective morality exist without God, instead he is trying to argue that morality does not exist at all. As I stated this is utter nonsense per the definition of morality itself. There would be 2 conclusions to rebuttals his arguments(1) No morality exists at all even with God ( Nihilism)(2) Morality is based on subjectivity (Moral Relativism )It would take two seconds to refute the fact morality itself cannot exist without God ( Which I have just Did), but that still leaves his burden unfilled. Instead of arguing from the first syllogism I laid out he should be arguing the following. P1) God necessitates objective moralityP2) God exitsC) Objective morality exists because of GodYou can interchange that syllogism a few ways, but he should be arguing that God is the sole reason that objective morality exists. His entire approach to this is kind of baffling, instead of taking the only way to win this debate he has went the way he cannot win. He chose to argue that no morality exists without God, therefore objective morality is necessarily true because god exists. Basically if God did not exist, morality would not exists therefore objective morality has to be true because God is the only way morality can exist. As I stated morality is a set of moral principles and constructs. So yes morality does exist without God. The only thing I have to do to refute his argument is just assert that morality can exist without God and prove it. I have did this already, and it's a simple concept. He is saying humans do not possess the capability to know right and wrong without God, which is also false. What is right and wrong is subjective from his perspective. So in a sense he is acknowledging that morality exists but it is subjective, but he is then asserting that because its subjective morality does not exist. That is a self contradiction and shows a lack of understand for what morality actually entails. Reconstruct 1 ) The veil of ignorance My adversary just asserts what is is rational is fiction. I tied this in with the second argument after this but a rational person would not want to harm someone, would not want to hurt someone without cause, would literally not want to hurt people for no reason. The idea may be routed in subjectivity depending on what someone perceives as rational but that does not change the fact you can derive objective morality from the veil itself. By applying the veil and basing it on what a rational person would think, you have a set of standards that you could abide by. The veil removes social status, wealth, age, sex, etc from the occasion. It is a thought experiment where a group of or a single rational person is acquitted from all society impacts and is asked what is right and wrong or what would make society prosper. " Rawls calls his conception “justice as fairness.” His aim in designing the original position is to describe an agreement situation that is fair among all the parties to the hypothetical social contract. He assumes that if the parties to the social contract are fairly situated and take all relevant information into account, then the principles they would agree to are also fair. The fairness of the original agreement situation transfers to the principles everyone agrees to, and further that whatever laws or institutions are required by the principles of justice are also fair. The principles of justice chosen in the original position are in this way the result of a choice procedure designed to “incorporate pure procedural justice at the highest level” Basically you are asking either that person or a group of people (generally a group) to agree upon a contract or agreements that are fair and just. The issue with this is that what is fair and just would vary depending on age, wealth, political affil, etc. The veil removes all of this and focuses strictly on things that would make the society prosper and run. Ie not killing without cause, no harm , etc. You tie this into with my second argument, then you have a guidelines for how objective morality can be achieved without God. Reconstruct 2 ) Help vs HarmObviously there are actions that are going to harm people that are justified. My adversary just too that statement without much thought and did even offer a proper rebuttalThe first premise would actually line up to be1 - Any action that intentionally harms someone without a justified purpose is morally wrongYou role this back to the highest possible standard and you get the basic question that accompanies this line of thought that often shows up in morality debates. It's often called the trolley and follows with something like this"A train is hurtling down a track and you see that it is going to hit a group of 5 people and will certainly kill them all. However you happen to be standing next to a switch that can divert the train down another track where only a single person would be killed. Most people say they would pull the switch and kill 1 rather than 5" [3]Then you get the question is it morally permissible to kill one to save 5. By saving 5 you have did the greater good. Some would argue no, some would argue yes. You base this on util and the greater good, then the answer is save the 5. Roll this back to the highest degree as I stated and you get the ultimate question. Is it moral to kill 1 and save an entire planet. Its on a higher scale, but asks the same question. The answer is obviously yes. It is moral to kill the person because it is for the greater good of society. So to answers pros objection, what is helpful and harmful is also tied in with my util argument. Basically unnecessary harm or harm that does not benefit society is objectively wrong. Anything that could further society is objectively right. Reconstruct 3 ) UtilThis literally goes non refuted and I basically refuted this in my other two points as well. He makes a baseless assertion about Hitler that is off topic and not relevant. He basically asserts Hitler said (x) is best for society so util is false. Util operates under the good of society. Just because someone claims something is best for society, does not actually make it best for society. There are literally principles that make society function. Would committing this action help people more than harm people, would doing this action have a positive effect, etc and so forthAnything Hitler did , you can logically rule out because it was strict harm instead of help. All of these contentions tie together in a way to establish a system of objective morality without God. Conclusionsadly this debate is going to come to an end soon, and this is a clear and concise win for me. He chose to argue the worst possible case. He is arguing that morality cannot exist without God, not objective morality but just morality itself. Therefore sense morality cannot exist without God, and God exists all morality is objective because it is defined by God. As I have stated and show, this is false. Morality does exist without God but the question is whether its subjective or subjective. My adversary is asserting that subjective morality is not morality, which is a self contradiction and kind of funny. Basically he asserting there is no such thing as objective morality. This debate is pretty one sided. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com...[2] (CP, 310, cf. TJ 120/104). (Rawl, A Theory of Justice)[3] Trolley problem, philosophy 101