Many notable atheists thinkers are avowed moral relativists or nihilists. However, there are atheists, especially pop atheists, who say we can be moral without God. Indeed, we can be more virtuous without God because Christian ethics is so deplorable.
Christian philosophers and apologists usually counter that atheists who say we can be moral miss the point. They concede that people can be moral without believing in God. The point, rather, is that morality can't be justified apart from divine creation and revelation.
That's true, but it lets atheists off the hook too easily. From a Christian standpoint, the examples of virtuous atheists are typically atheists raised in a culturally Christian nation. Even though they repudiated Christianity, their social mores were conditioned by Christian values. When, however, we look at social ethics in pre-Christian cultures or secular regimes, or the modern Democrat party, we witness massive cruelty.
I remember listening to a video by David Pawson, a British evangelist, and an atheist in the group he was giving a talk to responded by saying something along the lines of he could be moral without God. Pawson responded along the lines of, "Sure, your Christian parents taught you, didn't they, but what do you have to teach your children?"
ReplyDeleteI second this, as I've said before - without Christianity's influence, slavery / women as chattel / brutal wartime methods / casual infanticidie would be the norm in the West today.
ReplyDelete(Well, that last one IS the norm in the West today, on a scale far larger than GrecoRome ever experienced.)
Atheists can be moral without belief in God. The problem is their morality has no foundation. Romans 2:14-15 the moral law is written on the heart.
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