I'm an Atheist, and I'm Moral
In the fictional Origin (see the inside article), people respond to a televised speech both in favor of it and in opposition to it. Someone posts the comment, "Religion cannot claim morality as its own . . . I am a good person because I am a good person! God has nothing to do with it!" (418). Really? And pray tell, "How do you know you are good without the Divinely-inspired, objective standard of morality that comes from the Word of God?" Anyone can claim to be good—even the most vile and evil of people. Isaiah wrote: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil…" (5:20). If God does not exist, who defines what is good and evil?
Many atheists are like Antony G. N. Flew, who fought the Nazis in World War II. Brother Warren, who also held a Ph.D., asked him if the Nazis were guilty of real, moral evil. He knew the answer was, "Yes," but he could not name any law they had violated. He and many others have been raised under the influence of Christian principles and may well believe that murder, stealing, adultery, and other immoralities are wrong, but they do not get those values from matter and chemicals. They grew up hearing God's moral law.
Brother Warren set forth a proposition that shows the atheist to be in a predicament. If morality arises solely from man, then there is nothing objective about it; only if God gives morality to us does it arise outside of mankind. That which comes from man is, by necessity, subjective. Consider abortion, for example. Some atheists oppose it and some champion it. Who is right? Without an objective standard, both views (though opposites) must be considered equally valid. The same is true of homosexuality. Some believe it to be right while others insist that it is wrong. If morality is subjective, both views are correct. The practice is simultaneously right and wrong, which produces both contradiction and chaos. This subjective approach that atheism offers does not work. Morality, in fact, cannot exist, and no moral issue can ever be resolved.
No one has ever claimed that an atheist cannot live a moral life—only that he has no basis to do so with his system of unbelief. On the other hand, if all who believe in God follow His precepts, then we hold the right view when we agree with the objective standard, and we hold the wrong view if we disagree with it. Hitler and the Nazis violated God's moral law concerning murder. According to atheism, he could not be condemned. Which system will mankind do better under—one that allows for certainty or one that depends on the whims of any particular culture at any particular time? The answer lies all around us.