Moral Thinking: The Atheist Dilemma

Moral values are intuitively grasped by humans. We intuitively grasp that it is wrong to rape, torture and kill an innocent child because it brings us pleasure. At a more basic level, we acknowledge that there is an "ought" as opposed to merely an "is". To deny this is to deny something fundamental about what it means to be human. Moral intuition requires no defense or justification in logic; it is, as Plantinga puts it, properly basic.

The problem for the atheist is objective morality, actual, factual, right-and-wrong, is a strong evidence for the existence of God.  Many atheists acknowledge this.

Atheists have two strategies in dealing with this dilemma.  

One is to acknowledge that objective moral values would indeed point to a God but to deny that they exist.

The other is to acknowledge that objective moral values do in fact exist, but that they nevertheless do not point to God.

They're half-right and half-wrong.  

The human intuition that objective morals exist is right. Objective morals exist, and objective morals point to God as the sufficient and necessary source for them.

The atheist must either deny their existence, or deny their legitimate source.

The theist faces no such dilemma. Theism best fits the facts of the human condition. To deny that humans are intrinsically moral creatures inhabiting a moral universe diminishes us.

Reclaim your humanity. Rebel against the atheist machine.™

Peter S. Williams articulates this argument in this mp3 audio.