It has always struck me as so odd, how so many people can embrace a worldview that is not built around God. For myself, and my apparently unusual way of thinking, a world without God cannot have ultimate meaning. Sure, one could self-identify an ethical worldview based simply on preference and gut motivation, but ultimately there is no foundation or authority, for this construct is self-defined and arbitrary. This only leaves emptiness.
This ultimately leaves one with no actual definition of right and wrong. Sure, again, one can define these for oneself, but again, it is without foundation and arbitrary. This feels empty.
In dialogs with atheists, a declaration is usually made regarding how horrified they are to find that the only thing keeping Christians from committing horrible acts of cruelty and crime is the fabrication of an imaginary god. Of course, this is a pathetic strawman and a diversion from the point of the discussion. No one is arguing that the existence of God is the only thing keeping us from crime and terror. The question is, “what do you use to justify any moral code?” If one has no foundation upon which to build an ethical system, then any ethical system embraced is completely arbitrary and indefensible. Anyone could come along at anytime and simply say, “that might work for you, but since you simply made it up, I do not have to follow it.”
And also, in the instance that an ethical system is constructed by an atheist that looks very similar to Christian ethics, that is good, but it still does not hold the atheist by any authority, for it was self defined. One could change a self fabricated ethical system and no one could argue against doing so.
Atheists may have good and fine ethical systems, but they have no authority or foundation for such.
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