[An essay on the logical implications of one's worldview on morality]
I recently had a discussion with a young atheist who could not believe in God because of all the pain and suffering in the world. In particular he pointed out child abuse and the death of innocents as a key stumbling block. I pointed out that without God, he had no basis to call such things "evil", since there is no evil in a materialist framework, only personal values and opinions. He had no clear answer to this, other than to say that he did value moral goodness, and he did believe that children are necessary even in an atheist worldview for the "continuation of the species". I simply retorted that he had no basis for such values from within his worldview, and he had to "back door" such values into his system from Christianity. Then we moved on with the discussion…