The Morally Superior Atheist

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I have made much of the argument for Christianity’s truth based on the moral argument.  The basic idea of the moral argument is that atheism has no basing for objective morality; there is no reason for an atheist to be moral given their way of thinking about the world.

This form of argumentation is often miss-characterized by those in the vocal atheist movement.  They say we are accusing them of being amoral, evil people who do not live lives that meet a high standard of right and wrong.  Some web sites ever accuse us of saying atheists eat babies because they are so immoral.  This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the argument. 

In fact, the argument only works if most atheists are outwardly morally outstanding people.  The idea is that a morally superior atheist has no objective basis for the moral life he or she is living.  They are borrowing a set of moral absolutes from another worldview, unusually Christianity itself.  A person only borrows a concept that he or she knows to be true at some level.

The atheist who is a fine, upstanding, and moral person proves by their very life that the atheist view of the world is inadequate.  A better way to see the world is to admit there are moral absolutes established by a loving creator God.  This is the only way to provide and intellectually tenable moral system (For a defense of that position by a professional defender of the Christian faith, see this book.).


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