This is a sample of some of the craftwork done by my brother Brent. He resides in Salisbury MD, working for the Utz Corporation. Brent has won three national art display titles and two regionals, I believe. Still, he has time to do artwork on the side and have great showings at local craft fairs and conventions!
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I've found some fascinating reading in the apologetics and head-to-head debates of William Lane Craig. Specifically, I've followed the 1996 debate that took place at North Carolina State University on the subject Does God Exist? The debate was between William Lane Craig and Douglas M. Jesseph, both well-respected in their fields. Follow this excerpt from the debates (the entire debate can be read at http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/jesseph-craig0.html). It is Dr. Craig's response to the question about God's existence, specifically in the area of morality (His words are marked in yellow):
What about objective moral values in the world? Here Dr. Jesseph simply asks, "What are objective values?" Objective values are values that hold independently of whether anybody believes in them or not. That is what an objective value is, and I submit those can't exist unless there is God to ground them.
He says, "Well, what is special about human beings? I answer that they suffer pain."
But what I want to know is why on an atheistic view is it wrong to inflict pain on organisms? Animals do it all the time to each other, and that's all we are on an atheistic view. Richard Taylor, the ethicist, imagines people living in a state of nature without moral laws. Suppose one person kills another one and takes his goods. Taylor says this:
Such actions, though injurious to their victims, are no more … unjust, or immoral than they would be if done by one animal to another. A hawk that seizes a fish from the sea kills it, but does not murder it; and another hawk that seizes the fish from the talons of the first takes it, but does not steal it -- for none of these things is forbidden. And exactly the same considerations apply to the people we are imagining. (Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), p. 14.)
In a world without God, who is to say what is right and wrong? Who is to say that moral values exist? It seems to me that we would just be like these animals in the animal kingdom. But, as I think we both agree, this is obviously wrong. There are objective moral values that exist, and therefore it follows logically and inescapably that God exists.
Bravo, Dr. Craig! I enjoy reading your simple and straightforward answers. Occam's Razor, indeed - the simplest answers are most often the correct ones. Simplicity gives a clear answer here.
