No Gods Exist

Thanks, I ran out of characters in the last round so here are my conclusions/backups for my arguments. For some reason " is appearing all over my arguments. Don't know why. Defending the moral argument. Defending Premise 1. "If there is no God, There are no objective moral values. " I have to admit that this claim is quite controversial and many philosophers disagree with me. I think, However, That objective moral values are not sufficiently explained in a universe without God. Many have agreed with this claim. For example, Dostoevski had Ivan Karamazov claim, "If there is no God, Everything is permitted. " Sartre wrote of Dostoevski"s statement, "That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, Everything is permissible if God does not exist, And as a result man is forlorn, Because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. " [see his essay Existentialism] John Mackie "" probably the best philosophical atheist of the twentieth century recognizes this: "[Objective moral values] constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events, Without an all-powerful god to create them. If, Then, There are such intrinsically prescriptive objective values, They make the existence of a god more probable than it would have been without them [The Miracle of Theism, Pp 115-116. ] Mackie recognizes that these objective values do not fit in the universe if there is no God. His answer, Since he rejects God, Is to claim that there are no objective moral values. His book on ethics is appropriately titled Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. I agree with Dostoevski, Sartre and Mackie. If there is no God, There are no objective moral values. Defending Premise 2. "There are objective moral values. " We know there are objective moral values. By this I mean that the content of morality is not determined by the individual, Or by culture. Rather some things are objectively wrong. Other things are objectively obligatory. Actions such as rape, Racist discrimination and torturing an innocent baby to death for no reason are really wrong. Furthermore, It is wrong for me to do these no matter when I live and no matter from what culture I come. Now many people believe that morality is not objective. This view comes in three basic varieties. 1. The individual determines morality. If the individual determines morality, Then if I believe it is morally permissible to steal your stereo and beat up your girlfriend, It is permissible for me to do it. But it is not permissible for me to beat up your girlfriend. Therefore, The individual does not determine morality. 2. Society determines morality. If I lived in a completely racist society, Would racism be right for me? Not at all. When an American university student protests against South Africa"s policy of apartheid, He is assuming that morality is not determined by society. It is transcendent of cultures. All of our greatest heroes have been men and women who have stood up to society"s wrongs and appealed to a morality that is transcendent to society in order to demand change. If society determines morality, It is always morally wrong to criticize society. There is no morality outside of society which can form the basis of a moral critique. 3. Morality has survival value. Some people claim that the reason we have this moral sense is that it helped the human race survive. Those individuals with moral sense grouped together for mutual protection and these did better than those without the moral sense. This is a kind of prehistoric social contract theory of morality. The problem with this is that we do not need morality to survive today. In fact, If you and I know that morality has no objective validity and the rest of our culture still thinks it is valid, We can take advantage of this to get the most we can. There is no moral reason to refrain from rape, Robbery and murder. These inadequate objections show that our sense is that there is a morality that is trans-personal, Trans-cultural and trans-temporal The existence of a personal God is the best explanation for this. It is not up to the individual or the culture whether it is permissible to rape simply for fun. Any individual who believes it is morally permissible to rape for fun has a false belief. Any culture whose moral guidelines include the claim that it is permissible to rape for fun has simply got it wrong. If it is true that Hitler was morally wrong, It is true that there are objective moral truths which are trans-cultural. If it is true that it was wrong for Romans to leave baby girls to die on the trash heaps "" simply because they were girls, Then morality is not determined by culture. If it is true that Martin Luther King was a moral hero because he criticized his own culture by appealing to objective morality, Then it is true that morality is not determined by culture. Now, It is true that Hitler was wrong. It is true that the Romans were wrong. It is true that Martin Luther King was right "" heroically right. So, We know there are objective moral truths. But objective morality makes no sense in the Universe if there is no God. Objective moral values point to the existence of a moral being who created the universe. His moral character is the standard for objective right and wrong. You criticized the phrase"come into existence" Perhaps I may have used the wrong word, But that is the best way I can describe it.