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  • Writer's pictureBible Brian

Right and wrong, or right and left?


Most people understand that right and wrong are real concepts, and most people willingly admit this. However, this causes some serious problems for atheists. Moral laws require a moral legislator. And it can't be man, for we are equal, yet opposite. Different people have different moral views, and so all arguments that humans make moral laws inevitably fail. This has caused many atheists to do something particularly radical: Deny that objective morality exists. But even those who take this route instinctively know they're wrong. To illustrate this, let us examine two laws: Left/right handed traffic, and homicide.


It's common knowledge that different countries drive on different sides of the road. Here in England, we drive on the left. In other countries, such as America, people drive on the right. To fight over which is right would be plain daft. It really doesn't matter if your country has left handed traffic laws or right handed traffic laws. All that really matters is you have some form of traffic directions that enable cars to move swiftly and safely to their destinations. If, for some unfathomable reason, a country decided to swap systems, the argument against it wouldn't be "no, that's evil", but "no, that's a logistical nightmare".


But now let's talk about honor killings. In most places throughout the world, honor killings are illegal. However, in Jordan, those who kill female relatives caught in adultery are exempt from punishment. It is also possible to argue "mitigating circumstances" for murder to reduce or prevent punishment, a loophole readily exploited by honor killers (1). Now, in 2011, Jordanian legislators actually attempted to close that loophole, but were prevented by community backlash. Who was right in that struggle? The legislators, or the protestors? If morality is not objective, we should be as indifferent to honor killings as we are to right and left handed traffic. But we're not, are we? The reason honor killings are outlawed across the entire world is because they are evil, and so laws preventing them ought to exist.


The stark contrast between logistical and moral laws, even in the minds of atheists, proves that moral laws are objective. Those who claim they are subjective are lying to themselves, and to others. But it need not be this way. We need not resort to absurdities to defend atheism because atheism is an absurdity that is not worth defending. Rather than denying our moral instincts, we should embrace them.


But obviously, that will be just as uncomfortable as denying them, because when we embrace God's laws as they are written on our hearts, we also understand that we have broken them. That knowledge only grows when we read them from His word. But there is good news: God's mercy is greater than man's sin. While all sin must be accounted for, there are two ways in which God can do it. The first is to punish the sinner. Yet, while we have done the crime, we simply cannot afford to do the time. The solution God chose, therefore, is called "Penal Substitutionary Atonement". That is, Jesus came to Earth to live as a human being. While Jesus lived, He never sinned, and yet, He died as if He was a sinner. Because He, being innocent, died as though He was guilty, you, being guilty, can be raised to life as if you were innocent.


A time will come when you will leave this life behind, and God will judge you by His objective standards. You have a choice as to how this goes down. You can accept your own punishment. But there is a way out. If you confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.


References


1. Dailey, J. Douglas and Singh, Raghu N. - "Honor killing". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Aug. 2016 (link)

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