Atheists often claim that Christians say “if you don’t have religion, you don’t have morality.” (video @ 2.22 min)

Another favorite claim by Atheists is that religion is evil and the world would be a better place without it.

As usual, these tired old atheist tropes are based on a false understanding of Christianity and defy basic LOGIC. Notice that both of these claims are about morality.

The answer to the first claim is simply that by the very tenants of atheism itself, it has no BASIS for objective morality. It’s the difference between the ontological basis of morality (why it exists) and the epistemological (how we know it). ANYONE can BE moral and DO moral actions. Atheism just can't answer the "why it exists" question. As is, where does it come from? Who wrote the rules? At best, atheism has a subjective/relative morality which is called relativism. However a little careful thought reveals that moral relativism isn’t real morality — if everyone were the arbitrators of their own speed limit, there would, in effect, be no such thing as a “speed limit.” It would be impossible to be wrong. If you felt wrong, you could just change your mind. If someone else called you wrong, you would say, “Says who?”

“If there’s nothing in the universe that’s higher than human beings, then what’s morality? Well, it’ s a matter of opinion. I like milk; you like meat. Hitler likes to kill people. I like to save them. Who’s to say which is better?
Do you begin to see the horror of this? If there is no Master of the universe, then who’s to say that Hitler is did anything wrong? If there is no God, then the people that murdered your wife and kids did nothing wrong.” - From the movie, “The Quarrel.”

One of the favorite arguments atheists have against religion is that it has done great evil. But if evil is real, then atheism has to be false. But if atheism is true, then there is no such as real evil - or good. It’s all just personal opinion. 8 billion different opinions. Yet, curiously, all 8 billion people seem to agree right and wrong is real and evil is real. Atheism and objective moral law can’t be true at the same time.

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won't find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice... There is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, NO EVIL and NO GOOD (emphasis added). Nothing but blind pitiless indifference... DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music." - Richard Dawkins, atheist, author

So which is it, atheists? You can't have it both ways - you can't claim evil doesn't exist while simultaneously denouncing religion as being evil. That's called cognitive dissonance: believing two contradictory things at the same time. That is certainly not a rational position.

"If justice doesn't exist, then neither does injustice. After all, something can't be not right unless something really is right... Indeed, you can't know what is evil unless you know what is good. And you can't know what is good unless there is an unchanging standard of good outside yourself." - Dr Frank Turek

Behind every moral statement is the question, “Say’s who?” There are only two possible answers: No one does. Someone does. If no one does, then morality is relative, there is no real right and wrong, it’s all just personal opinion. However, those who claim morality is relative can‘t actually live it. Key their fancy new car and they will scream for “justice.” But claiming an injustice has been done is declaring there is an objective standard of justice that has been violated.

“The atheist is cheating whenever he makes a moral judgment, acting as though it has an objective reference, when his philosophy in fact precludes it.” - William A. Dembski, mathematician & philosopher

People hate the idea that morals are real and objective because it means facing the “Say’s Who?” question. If morals are objective, they come from outside of humans; Someone wrote the rules. The rules we all break. And breaking rules means punishment - even in human society. So we try to deny the rules are objective. But then if morals are not objectively real...then injustice, rape, suffering, evil and murder aren't really wrong. They're just differences of opinion. And no atheist really believes that or lives it out. Except serial killers and sociopaths:

“I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the US had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured out for myself what apparently the Chief Justice couldn’t figure out for himself: that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any ‘reason’ to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring and strength of character to throw off its shackles.” - Ted Bundy, serial killer in the ‘70’s who raped and murdered over 30 women

If anything can be truly wrong, then right must also be real. Likewise, for injustice to be real, justice must also be too. Calling something good or bad means there is some continuum upon which they have been placed. But this requires an external standard by which they are judged. Which begs the questions:

1. What is at each end of the Good and Bad continuum?
2. What is the Standard by which good and bad are judged?

To call something good or bad requires referring to a standard outside of both. The moment you call something good or bad, you’re actually dealing with three points of reference:

1. The object judged
2. It’s opposite (for wrong to exist, right must exist)
3. The external standard of reference by which both are compared.

“The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either.” - C.S. Lewis, scholar & former atheist

“Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle - something you have to assume but cannot prove.” - Kurt Godel, logician, mathematician and philosopher.

“There must be an Absolute if there are to be morals. If there is no Absolute beyond man’s ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict.” - Francis A. Schaefferi, theologian & philosopher

“Saying something is evil is making a moral judgment; moral judgments require a moral standard; a moral standard requires an author; and a transcendent moral law requires a transcendent moral law giver (God). - Gregory Koukl, StandToReason.org

For a more indepth examination of morality, see our article, “Morality 101.”