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Good without God: Secular humanism and morality

We all live in the real world. When Christians speak of God as the anchor for all morality this does not mean that atheists are in contrast immoral people. This argument is commonly misunderstood to insinuate that somehow a person who doesn't believe in God isn't capable of moral actions. Thus, the common defense is to point out the good deeds of an atheist to dismantle the theist's argument.





In reality, this does not address the argument for it isn't about what one believes, but what is true. If the origin of good is found in God, then that is true for all humanity regardless of who believes in it. The reality of that truth affects all the earth no matter who intellectually ascribes to it. Thus, every human will have an intuitive knowledge of good versus evil. We all know when we have missed the mark regardless of our religious upbringing or lack thereof.





All humans have a knowledge of the "moral ought." It's not something merely preferential. It always comes back to an "ought." Humans will always appeal to a standard to justify their moral assertions. However, increasingly in today's world people are denying the standard while trying to keep a moral construct with no foundation to base it upon. I once had a history professor who lamented repeatedly that there was no truth and no facts. We could not know anything for certain, she claimed. Ironically, one day the class was discussing plagiarism. She was appalled at how many students were attempting to justify plagiarism. She spoke adamantly that plagiarism was a moral wrong and that she could not believe the audacity of her students to argue otherwise. I wasn't surprised. What foundation did they have to make a moral judgment if they accepted her philosophy? She didn't live by her own philosophy. She threw it out the window when a moral "ought" came up for it didn't work. There is a standard, but if it is denied the "ought" of morality must be denied along with it.





Christian apologists often give the argument that there is a moral law for we all have the knowledge of a moral "ought." Therefore there is a moral law giver, namely God. In reality, this argument gives a false impression. It gives the idea that God has created a moral law that he could write out for you like the laws given in the Old Testament and that we all have a shared knowledge of these laws within us. Any thinking person can object immediately to this idea for while there is great similarity between cultures as to right and wrong, there are also


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Good without God: Secular humanism and morality

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