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are authorities. Moreover, authorities have biases. Craig claims that
most New Testament scholars believe that Jesus tomb was empty.
(23) Maybe so, but this should come as no surprise, since most peo-
ple do not spend their lives studying the New Testament unless they
accept Christianity to begin with. Most importantly, authorities are
useless where controversy lives, as in philosophy. For every philoso-
pher whom Craig cites, I could quote others who claim the oppo-
site. Almost no view is so absurd that you can t find some philoso-
pher who held it. But the fact that a philosopher says something is
no argument that what that philosopher says is true. That goes for
me, too. You have to judge for yourself.
1. Morality
One example of a questionable appeal to authority occurs in Craig s
argument from objective morality. Craig quotes Russell, Ruse, and
Nietzsche, saying that there could not be objective values without
God. Then he claims that there are objective values. He concludes
that God exists.
There Is No Good Reason to Believe in God 33
It is important to get this argument out of the way right at the
start, because it leads many religious believers to think that all athe-
ists are immoral and dangerous. This is false. Many atheists are nice
(including me, I hope). Craig admits this, but then he writes, On
the atheistic view, there s nothing really wrong with your raping
someone. (18) Such misleading and inaccurate allegations inhibit
mutual understanding.
In fact, many atheists are happy to embrace objective moral val-
ues. I agree with them. Rape is morally wrong. So is discrimination
against gays and lesbians. Even if somebody or some group thinks
that these acts are not morally wrong, they still are morally wrong,
so their immorality is objective by Craig s own definition (17). Craig
and I might not always agree about what is objectively morally wrong,
but we do agree that some acts are objectively morally wrong.
This admission implies nothing about God, unless objective val-
ues depend on God. Why should we believe that they do? Because
Russell, Ruse, and Nietzsche say so? But their claims are denied
by many philosophers, atheists as well as theists. Even Russell and
Ruse themselves denied these claims at other times in their ca-
reers. So Craig needs a reason to believe some authorities rather
than others.
Craig does give some reasons to back up his authorities. One is
that atheists see morality as a biological adaptation, but moral val-
ues are not objective if they depend on our biology. This argument
commits a fallacy of equivocation. When anthropologists talk about
a culture s morality, they describe a group of beliefs about what is
right and wrong or good and bad. In contrast, when philosophers
present a moral system, they seek a set of rules or principles that
prescribes what really is morally right and wrong or good and bad.
Morality in the philosophical sense can be objective, even if people s
beliefs about it are subjective. After all, scientific beliefs have bio-
logical and cultural origins as well. Just as it is objectively true that
the earth moves around the sun, although biology and culture lead
some people to believe otherwise, so rape is objectively morally
wrong, although biology and culture lead some people to believe
otherwise. At least this position is not excluded by the biological and
cultural origins of moral beliefs, so atheists can recognize those ori-
gins and still consistently believe in objective values.
34 God?
Craig next asks, If God did not forbid rape, what makes rape im-
moral objectively? This question is supposed to be hard for athe-
ists to answer, because Craig seems to assume that on the atheis-
tic view (which one?) what makes rape wrong is some cost to the
rapist or to society. (18) These views are inadequate because rape
would still be immoral even if the rapist got away with it and even
if society was not harmed. But atheists can give a better answer:
What makes rape immoral is that rape harms the victim in terrible
ways. The victim feels pain, loses freedom, is subordinated, and so
on. These harms are not justified by any benefits to anyone. Craig
still might ask, What s immoral about causing serious harms to other
people without justification? But now it seems natural to answer,
It simply is. Objectively. Don t you agree?
This simple answer implies nothing like in the absence of any
people, Justice itself exists, so atheists can agree with Craig that
they don t know what this means. (19) Atheists can also agree with
Craig and Taylor that A duty is something that is owed. . . . But
something can be owed only to some person or persons. (19) The
duty not to rape is owed to the victim. Thus, Craig s criticisms of
Atheistic Moral Realism attack a straw man.
Craig suggests a deeper problem when he asks, what s so spe-
cial about human beings? (18) If harm to the victim is what makes
rape immoral, why isn t it also immoral when a lion causes harm by
having forced sex with another lion? Atheists can answer that lower
animals, such as lions, are not moral agents. They do not make free
choices. Their actions are not determined by any conception of what
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