Argument from Bad Morals

One of the most common objections to arguments for the existence of God is what I like to call the Argument from Bad Morals. It seems to be fairly common among New Atheists and tends to surface whenever the Argument from Morality comes up. It goes something like this:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2. Objective moral values do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Few will object to the first premise since it's the condition for the whole argument. All sorts of objections crop up with the second premise, though. The typical counter-argument goes as follows (there are two variations on Premise two, but the argument is essentially the same):

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2a. Theists (read: "Christians") do immoral things.

2b. God does immoral things.

3. Therefore objective moral do not exist and it follows that God cannot exist. 

One can immediately see that the third premise does not follow the second, it's a non sequitur. It also fails to price that objective moral values exist.

Theist immorality is really a non-issue as far as the Moral Argument goes because it doesn't prove anything, except maybe that Christians and Jews are mistaken about a few things. So it fails to disprove God but it can't because it has no bearing on the existence of Jesus, his divine nature, death, and resurrection.

It seems that they are really trying to say "God did something I don't like so he's not real." That's absurd. I can't do that to God anymore than I can do it to my boss. 

Next time you hear this, try phrasing their argument like this and see what happens. It will hopefully give them some food for thought. If not, then you can at least be sure you know what's really going on.