The Ultimate Reason?

You could look into the Problem of Evil (POE)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

If you scroll down to the external links there are some answers to this. Warning though this stuff might give you a headache.

 

An improper view of God's sovereignty may lead one to question God's existence or morality. The simplest answer to why there is evil, pain, suffering, etc., is that God in his perfect wisdom knew that he would receive more glory by allowing such to take place than he would by preventing such from taking place. Without evil, pain, suffering, and especially death, there cannot be salvation from such, and it just so happens that only God can answer these problems. One who says morality came by natural processes cannot prove such to be the case, and therefore, if he is honest, will be open to other possibilities. If you have a friend like this, keep talking to him and praying for him.

 

If someone says there is no such thing as morality, they are essentially saying that there are no absolutes. This is a self-defeating argument. If you say there are no absolutes, that is an absolute! Therefore there must logically be absolutes.

One of the main arguments of classic philosophy concerns the origin of evil. If someone says that there is no God because there is pain, suffering and death in the world, they are ignoring this problem. Even dualism (good God, bad Devil, both equal) or Taoism (impersonal force that governs the universe) does better than this. All such a person can fall back on is Darwinian "survival of the fittest." So say to them, "By your system of thought, then, I can kill you without guilt. Right?" And go from there.

 

To me, the moral argument is one of the more powerful arguments for the existence of God. Ravi Z. is correct.

Look at it this way: the atheist says that ultimately there is nothing but particles....hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, etc. If this is so, then how did we ever get this idea of "right" and "wrong?"

C. S. Lewis put it in a great way.....suppose you have a tree in your yard. This tree is a bad tree....it is shaped wrong, makes no shade, has thorns, drops ugly things in your yard all the time, etc. So this is a bad tree. But do we say this is a morally wrong tree? Suppose the tree drops a huge limb and kills a child. Do we hold the tree morally responsible? Suppose the neighbor comes over and kills a kid. We would hold the neighbor as morally wrong, but not the tree. Why? If the only, ultimate difference between the neighbor and the tree is that we're on a different branch of the evolutionary tree, then ultimately there's no difference between the neighbor and the tree. We may not like the way the tree grows, but we understand the way it grows due to the specie and the weather. Where did we get this idea of morally wrong?

Another way: no one would agree that it is OK to torture little puppies to death for fun. Why? Where did this concept of morals come from?

If we say there are no morals, we have no grounds to look at anyone, Adolph Hitler or any racist, and say that they are wrong.

But if we are prepared to say that anyone has ever been morally wrong, then we must admit that the morals come from outside of us. If they came from cultural conditioning, then the Nazi's (and all racists) could say that it's not truly wrong to be a racist.....rather, we just culturally disagree. Therefore if anyone is ever really, truly wrong, then the morals have to be beyond culture, and come from something outside of ourselves. (namely God).

This moral argument is so powerful because you can use it on anyone.....for everyone has something that they truly believe in, and they hold the opposite of it to be truly wrong. It might be saving the rainforests, or the whales, or pollution, or whatever. Find out what people hold dear to themselves, and ask them if the opposite of that is a cultural conditioning, or is it truly wrong. Then introduce God as the source of ultimate right and wrong.

The problem with the moral argument is in communicating it....people tend to think that we're saying that all people have the same morals, which is not what we're saying. The argument says that we all have a sense of right and wrong.....no one has ever held that all acts are acceptable. Even Attilla the Hun would'nt want you to do to him the way he does to you.

 

I know a young lady, the product of our university system, who says that there is no right, no wrong, no truth other than her own, no morality other than that of consensus, that consensus happens in individual encounters, not in "group-think." Consensus for one group might not be consensus for another; therefore life is lived "in the now" with relatively few encounters (outside a circle of friends), to include government, the church, or whatever. For her, everything is a choice. She chooses abortion, supports illegal immigration, believes that terrorists are just acting out their frustrations .... and if others choose the opposite view, that is their truth, and their truth is just as valuable as her truth, but don't confront her with your truth because that's intolerant .

Sometimes I think she had been listening to a guru atop a holy mountain speaking gobbly-de-gook. If I confront her with questions like those posed in this forum, her response is to angrily turn me off, tune me out.

Before she went to university, she was a church-goer, identifiable as a Christian. Her circle of friends now includes atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, whose truths are equal to her own. I choose to believe that what this university product believes is gobbly-de-gook.

There is absolute Truth and it includes absolute morality and it is God-given. Once I named the Name of Jesus I became accountable to His Truth. I weep for a generation -- nay, more than that -- lost in the quicksand of "tolerance" and "I do my thing, you do your thing." In the final analysis that is anarchy, civil and spiritual. One hopes for revival, but sees only a great falling away.

 

It appears that she believes that intolerance is truly wrong....absolutely wrong for everyone. Ask her "Is intolerance wrong for everyone, or is it just wrong for you?" If it's wrong for everyone, then she believes in a universal truth that is true for everyone. If it's wrong only for her, then she has no grounds to say anything against intolerance.

I agree, one hopes for revival. It can happen.....God caused a revival through John Wesley, when England was on the verge of civil war. The revival saved a nation.

 

What a thinker you are Humble! Like that!