In the video, Craig argued that if God does not exist, then objective moral standard does not either.

Firstly, this argument does not say that atheists are immoral. In my previous post, Can atheists be moral? I argued that atheists indeed can be moral. And here, Craig agreed with me that anyone can be moral whether one is a theist or an atheist.

Secondly, this argument does not argue that objective moral standard comes from The Bible. Although Craig is a Christian and would argue for The Bible, this argument is not about that.

Matt Flannagan at MandM.org.nz has an excellent video about moral relativism which is the opposite of objective moral standard.

As seen in the video, atheists like Lewis believe that morality is the result of evolution process. That means, we, human, developed/collected our moral standard as we evolve. So, there is nothing inherently immoral/wrong with rape, torture, or murder. And similarly, there is nothing inherently moral/good about being honest, donating to charity, or helping little old lady crossing a busy street.

To say that objective moral standard exists is to say that the acts we considered immoral are inherently and universally immoral regardless of whether the currently established laws, regardless of cultural beliefs, regardless of time. So, if murder is objectively immoral, that means murder was immoral from the beginning of time, is immoral now, and will always be immoral forever.

So if a culture exists who believes that rape is not wrong, hence it is not a crime in that culture, with objective moral standard, we can justify condemning rape in that culture and even to force that culture to make rape a criminal offense.

But if there is no such thing as objective moral standard, we’re really have no basis to do that. Why? Because that culture got their view exactly the same way as we got our view, through evolution process. And there is nothing inherently wrong with rape, we just happen to adopt it as we evolve and somehow it increased our survival.

However to accept that objective moral standard exists is to accept that there’s an external source to our moral standard. A source that is greater than us that can give us the standard of right and wrong.

The reason is that freewill is the ability to choose between several options independent of circumstances and environment. In contrary, chemical reactions follow the law of nature, hence they are not independent of circumstances and environment. Given the same environment, we expect a chemical to give consistent result.

Chemical X should always give the same result when placed in environment Y. Chemical X does not have ability to choose a different result.

Minds decide who we are (I think therefore I am). Minds also decide our actions. So, if minds are chemical reactions, then who we are and our actions are already predetermined by our environment and circumstances. Therefore if minds are chemical reactions, nobody should be held accountable/guilty for any crime. It is irrational to blame and say that a chemical is guilty for not giving us a different result.

A murderer is guilty if we believe that the murderer could have chosen a different action (ex.: not murdering the victim). On the other hand, we do not expect that a chemical reaction would give a different result because the result is already predetermined by the environment. Hence if minds, that decide our actions, are chemical reactions, we should not expect that the murderer’s mind could have decided a different action (e.g.: not committing the crime). So if minds are chemical reactions, the murderer isn’t guilty, because he doesn’t have freewill.

I think that every human being can be moral, nice, good, pleasant without necessarily believe in the existence of God, nor being religious.

How do I know this? It can be easily proven scientifically with empirical data and observation. Even if you’re not a scientist, you can observe that easily through your life experience. You can verify this on your own every day. Find someone that you think is a good person, and ask him/her if they believe in God. Depending on where you live, you would likely to find that many of them are atheists.

It is undeniable fact that non-religious people are generally nice and law abiding citizens. They love their family, they love their country, they love and help others. Some won’t even hurt a fly, won’t hurt animal. They are loving, caring, and so on.

So, yes atheists can be moral. Anyone can be moral, good, nice, etc regardless their belief or lack of.

But the question is, can atheists justify their morality based on their world view? Is it rational for atheists to be moral despite what they believe and claim about the world?

When atheists are being nice, good, moral … are they being consistent with their claimed world view?

It’s easier to discuss this using a specific example. An atheist once asked me why do I think he is being irrational that he would die for his wife that he loves so much? By asking that, he implies he believes that loving his wife to the point where he would die for her is good and moral. And I agree, it is very moral and very good!

I explained to him that the materialistic explanation of love is that it’s caused by chemical reaction (hormone). Nothing more to it. It feels real, but underneath, it’s really just an effect of chemical reaction. Much like the effect of drugs.

So, why would anyone knowingly die for another human being (e.g.: his wife) for an illusion caused by chemical reaction no matter how real it feels?

If love is just an illusion, a more rational option for him is to not die for his wife. It’s irrational and illogical to sacrifice your only chance of enjoying life based on the effect of chemical reaction.

That would be a more consistent behavior instead of taking the bullet for his wife and let her escape. After all, there are many women in the world, he has more chance to find another wife and live for many more years.