Reply to Question for atheists: What governs how you live your life?

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[quote=Anonymous]I just read the two links, one about the atheist who converted and the other about the argument from conscience. Both fail.

The atheist's conversion starts with her premise that there is a universal objective morality outside of humans. She agrees that most other atheists think this is a weird idea for an atheist to have, and that she was already translating catholic apologist arguments to justify it. Bizarrely, when she finally admits that she's a theist and not an atheist, she decides that Catholicism is the right religion for her. But even if you grant that she logically found god in her belief system, there is no reason why she would jump to believing in Jesus other than that she likes the brand of cognitive dissonance its philosophers have had over the years.

The "argument from conscious" takes rhetorical leaps that are even more astounding. Essentially it goes like this: (1) most everyone will admit they have a conscience and that they should follow it. (2) the conscience has to come from somewhere. (3) It's either from something less than man, from man, something more than man, or god. (4) The first three are unworkable, therefore god.

The logical break happens between step one and step 2. While people will admit they have a conscience, the argument presupposes that, like the atheist, the conscience has some connection to a universal truth and isn't some combination of man's logic, evolutionary impulses, and societal learning.

It simple to disprove the premise: 20 years ago, a great majority of this country would have agreed that homosexual sex is immoral, and that gay marriage was doubly immoral. Now, a majority of the country believes that gay marriage should be allowed. It's clear that those who object now (or did in the past) to gay marriage did so on a moral basis. They think gay sex is some kind of crime against nature. All of those people had a conscience and their conscience informed their opinion that gay sex is immoral.

The majority of people who now think gay sex is not immoral also have a conscience. But if the conscience were a divinely-given, external source of morality this would not be possible.

I suppose you could argue that God always approved of gay sex and that we're just now realizing it, or alternatively that people who approve of gay sex are ignoring their conscience or lying about it, but that means our conscience is not what the argument from conscience says it is--absolute divine authority over right and wrong. [/quote]

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