DEBATENATE

Topics / Faith and God

The challenge

“You don't need God to be a good person”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

You can be good without believing in God. You can't have good without God. I'll work next to any atheist on a good cause, gladly. But look at what he's standing on. Romans two says even people who never had God's law show it written on their hearts. That's why an atheist knows cruelty is wrong. He's using the ruler. He just can't tell you where the ruler came from. The Declaration of Independence gets this. It says our rights come from a Creator, because rights handed out by people can be taken back by people. You'll say empathy and evolution explain kindness. They explain why you feel it. They can't tell you why you owe it. Let me ask you this. If there's no God, what makes kindness good instead of just popular? Atheists can be good. Atheism just can't tell you why.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. Knowing right from wrong and explaining right and wrong are two different jobs. The atheist does the first because the moral law is built into him. His worldview can't do the second.

    Romans 2:14-15 teaches that people without the written law still show the work of the law written on their hearts, with their conscience bearing witness.

  2. The founders rooted rights in a Creator, not a government or a vote. What people hand out, people can take back.

    The Declaration of Independence says all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

  3. Instinct and evolution describe how we behave. A description of what is never adds up to a command about what ought to be.

    David Hume famously observed in A Treatise of Human Nature that writers move from statements about what is to claims about what ought to be without explaining how that step is justified.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Lots of atheists live more moral lives than lots of Christians, so belief in God clearly isn't what makes people good.

Nate: Some are, and that tells you about believers, not about where goodness comes from. A hypocrite holding a ruler still proves there's a ruler. A kind atheist living by the moral law still needs that law to come from somewhere.

What he grants the other side

Plenty of atheists are honest, generous and kind.

The lines

Sources

  1. The Bible, Romans 2:14-15 (first century)
  2. Second Continental Congress, The Declaration of Independence (1776)
  3. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III (1740)

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