In today's episode, we're going to talk about the best moral argument against atheism.

And to help us do that, I've asked non-theistic PhD candidate Joe Schmidt for Majesty of Reason

to review today's script to make sure all the philosophical ground is covered properly.

First, we have to remember that just as there is no single cosmological argument for God's existence,

an argument from the origin of the universe, there is no single moral argument for God's existence, an argument from the origin of the universe.

There is no single moral argument for God's existence. Instead, there are a collection of

arguments that all agree there is something about morality, good and evil, right and wrong,

that points to the existence of God. And because of this, you're going to have better and worse

arguments. The absolute worst arguments

are usually Reddit level summaries that most Christians don't even use. These are arguments like

you can't be good without God or you can't have morality without God. But the moral argument is

not saying belief in God is necessary to act in moral ways. That's a bold claim,

given that there are many people who don't believe in God that still act in moral ways. The argument

would be better rephrased, you can be good without God, but you can't have good without God.

That way we move the focus away from personal conduct and towards the strange

properties associated with morality. The moral argument is also not making the simplistic

claim that it's impossible to have morality without God. Setting aside questions of ontological

existence, you can have morality without God in the same way you can have football without God. Morality would

just be a series of mutually agreed upon rules to make the game of life more enjoyable for everyone to play.

A better summary would be that the moral argument claims you cannot have objective morality without God.

C.S. Lewis made this kind of argument famous in his book, Mere Christianity,

which was based on a series of radio addresses. These were meant for the common Englishmen during

...