For those not familiar with the argument from morality, it basically goes like this¹:

1. If God does not exist, then there are no objective (i.e. independent of human opinion) moral values and duties.

2. There are objective moral values and duties.

3. Therefore God exists.

My gut instinct when I first thought about this argument is that the first point has issues. I’ve asserted before that we can have morality without religion², and I still believe that a moral code independent of religion is superior, but as for where this morality could come from – I have no idea. I seem to remember Dawkins talking about how morality could have evolved, but that wouldn’t be objective morality, would it?

Which as got me thinking about the idea of objective morality as a whole, and I can’t help but ask – do we really have objective morality (point 2)? Zach Moore says that, at least at a debate lecture he attended, the idea the objective morality exists seems to be generally accepted, but I can’t help but feel that there’s something wrong with that, too.

What morals do we have that are objective? “Murder is bad” – Surely there’s some times it’s justified³? “Do no harm” – but what if my survival is at stake? “Do the greatest Good” – but, what IS good? Even the golden rule isn’t objective (although the rule itself seems to be the most universal law of morality) – “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” relies on our own opinions! Perhaps I really wouldn’t care if you stole my girlfriend?⁴

Do we really have objective morals? If so, what?

1. Moore, Zachary (2007) Dr. Craig Meets Dr. Zach
2. See my three part series on morality.
3. or is that just when we don’t call it murder?
4. Try it, and I’ll kill you!

• 7 Proofs That We Live in a Computer Simulation – or Why Proofs of Gods Existance Are Unconvicing
• Why I took so long to accept evolution – a.k.a. Why every christian should read their own bible. “part of what helped me along was actually reading the Bible in high school, being horrified by much of it”
• denialism blog : I can has souls? – There is a god, and it’s a cat.
• Religion and Sexual Ethics – A nice summary of the moral position of various religions. Interesting to compare catholicism and buddhism side by side! (I think I’m with the Buddhists, here)
• LOL cat Bible – Personally, I hate this pathetic LOLspeak crap, although this picture is funny… “In teh beginning, Invisible Man make univerz. Invisible Man say, I can has light. Gots light.”