douglasgresham.co.uk

Perhaps the single greatest source of misunderstanding in popular atheist/theist dialogues seems to be the problem of moral realism – that is to say that some or all moral or ethical propositions have an objective truth value (for instance, the statement “rape is always wrong”).  This is an important point, as it’s used both as a logical argument for the existence of God and an emotive appeal to the consequences of atheism, and it’s easy to see why people wouldn’t want to agree with an atheist who, as a moral relativist, appears to deny that rape is unequivocally wrong.  All too often, my impression is that the two sides are arguing about different things, so I’d like to explain what I think the atheist community could do better.

Continue Reading