It is a well known fact that atheism cannot account for morality. If there is no God, good and bad deeds become as subject to personal preference as good and bad ice cream flavors, and the one who is right is the man with the biggest gun.
At one point in history, that man was Adolf Hitler. There was a time when society supported Hitler (there goes the argument from society). There was a time when Hitler controlled the government (there goes the argument from law). At the height of his power, Hitler did some horrible things that caused the whole world to preserve the simple slogan "never again" (though sadly, it seems we are soon forgetting it).
What can an atheist say about Hitler's morality? There are three options. The first, which is where I am hoping most atheists will start at, is to say Hitler was evil. Now for the tricky part: Why? No atheist will ever be able to give a consistent answer to this question, because all the consistent answers are Theistic in nature. At best, the atheist will be able to say they don't like the Holocaust.
But that puts them in a very awkward position. Saying the Holocaust was not evil is almost as bad as saying it was good. I challenge every atheist who is stuck on option 2 to publish a video of themselves saying "the Holocaust was not a bad thing, it's just that I don't like it" and see the results. Hopefully, most of them will have the moral sense to not even reach for their cameras.
So obviously option 2 is not viable either. So, do you go back to option one and fail miserably to explain why Hitler was evil? You can try, but you'll end up right back here again. So, option 3: Acknowledge that moral absolutes exist, and that atheism cannot account for them.
If there are moral laws, there must be a moral law giver. There is a moral law giver, He did give moral laws, and unfortunately, we broke those moral laws, meriting His wrath. However, praise be to God, He also gave us a way to atone for breaking those moral laws. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth, lived a perfect life as a man, and died on the cross. In His death, Jesus took your punishment for sin, allowing God to completely dismiss all charges against you. By faith in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can inherit eternal life with God in His perfect Kingdom.
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An attempted response from an atheist
When this article was originally published as a post on the God Squad Apologetics Facebook page, an atheist attempted to respond with the following:
"There was a time the church supported Hitler (there goes the idea that religion has a monopoly on morality)."
Because there are multiple flaws in this response, the only sensible structure is a list:
1. Although you may find some examples of nominal Christians supporting Hitler, there was never a time when the Church supported Hitler. It is the hasty generalisation fallacy to claim that, since some nominal Christians supported Hitler, therefore the Church as a whole did.
1.1. Atheists even acknowledge this in a parallel argument from denominations. Atheists often argue "there are so many denominations, you can't all be right", as if "you can't all be right" necessarily means "you must all be wrong". In order to be consistent, atheists must acknowledge that not all churches are identical, even if it's inconvenient for them to do so in this case.
2. On the flip side of the above, many Christians, real and heretical, were quite vocally opposed to Hitler. Arthur Szyk depicted Hitler as the anti-Christ. Nathan Soderblom claimed Hitler was "chemically pure" from Christianity. Karl Spiecker published a book called "Hitler against Christ". These are just a few examples.
2.2. It must also be noted that Christianity is a Jewish faith, meaning Hitler hated it. Christians, therefore, didn't fare much better under his regime.
3. Perfect Christianity is a triangle: Faith, knowledge, and integrity. If a single point is removed, it is possible for a Christian to believe and do some very unChristian things. Let's look at the points of a triangle in more depth:
Knowledge: Knowing what Christianity teaches/knowing, in this case, what Hitler stood for.
Faith: Believing Christianity is true.
Integrity: Caring enough to act consistently.
Without knowledge, it doesn't matter if you believe Christianity is true and care enough about it, you might ignorantly oppose Christianity. You might not know God was against Hitler, you might not know Hitler was against God. We might draw some parallels with today's world. Several Christians ignorantly support inherently anti-Christian political parties, most notably the Democrats in America. It is likely future generations will recognise the evil of the Democrats, and use Christians who supported them in a similar way modern atheists use Christians who supported Hitler.
Without faith, you may know everything about Christianity and care enough to act on your conscience, you still don't believe Christianity is true, so why would you act on it? I once knew a girl who calls herself a Christian, but does not believe in God. If she supported Hitler, would that have any effect on Christianity?
Without integrity, you may know and believe the truth, but why would you care? Judas knew who Jesus was, he still sold Him out to the Romans.
To be clear, there is no such thing as the perfect Christian. But to claim Christianity should be judged by anyone who lacks a single point of that triangle is insane. Christ alone is perfect. Hitler would have murdered Christ. Christ has condemned Hitler to an eternity in Hell.
4. "Religion" is a blanket term, much like the word "animal". Thus, this atheist created a major straw man. I've never claimed religion has a monopoly on morality because I would never be so daft as to defend religions I don't believe in. Furthermore, there may be many religious people who are frankly disgusting, and even a few religions that actively preach Nazi-like ideologies, but Christianity is provably anti-Nazi (we have this famous book that clearly tells us it is impossible for an educated, faithful Christian to honestly support Hitler), and so the argument that anyone in the Church supporting Hitler somehow even scratches the case in the original article falls apart.
5. This is the Tu Quoque fallacy. The atheist did not try to show that atheism can account for morality, they merely made an embarrassing attempt to show that Christianity can't either. So really, they're just stuck on option two, and making feeble excuses not to move to option 3.
6. This insanity seems to be deliberate. Trying to explain why the Church cannot support Hitler is like trying to explain why the sun cannot be made of ice. It feels stupid when I even try to make the case as to why Christianity is opposed to Naziism, because there is no sensible reason I should have to. So my question is why must this atheist go to such senseless lengths to avoid salvation?