A problem that atheists face is that there’s no way to rationally ground morality within an irrational universe, which is to say, within a Godless universe. Different atheists approach this problem differently—most just do their best to ignore it—but there’s a kind that really perplexes me. This is the kind who says, “if you need religion to be good, that means you’re not good.”
(This is not quite as stupid as it looks on first blush, or rather, it’s as stupid as it looks but not for the reason it looks so stupid. They’re thinking entirely of “religion” as lists of rules like the ten commandments, rather than as as a description of the nature of the universe. Thus they are trying to say something like, “if you need a list of rules to follow it means that you don’t just automatically do everything good.” Which is, of course, true, though one wonders how absurdly hubristic or non-self-aware these people are that they are implicitly claiming that they’re perfect. Especially when they quite obviously aren’t.)
This kind of atheist invariably tries to argue that if a person ever needs to exercise self-restraint, that means that they’re a bad person. It is probably not entirely a coincidence that this kind of atheist is always a gentle autist who would have difficulty picking up a five pound bag of flour. I’ve no difficulty believing that they do not harm others because of any kind of self-restraint, since they’re so weak and unmasculine that they undoubtedly have no aggressive impulses at all. That much makes sense. What confuses me is how proud of this they are. It’s like they want a medal for their lack of ambition. They want people to look up to them for being physically useless.
Even weirder to me is how grossly historically ignorant they are. It never seems to occur to them that even a moderately knowledgeable person would be unable to name a time and place in which a strong, aggressive person who is sufficiently skilled at channeling their aggression so as to be successful—the kings of expanding kingdoms, for example—would not be at the top of social hierarchy while people like them—men who, to use Critical Drinker’s phrase, look like they use safety scissors to open a packet of crisps—would be at the bottom.
No one—anywhere—has ever given out medals for lacking ambition.
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Chris Lansdown 
“A problem that atheists face is that there’s no way to rationally ground morality within an irrational universe, which is to say, within a Godless universe.”
A larger problem that I, as an atheist, face when reading this is how to organise my thoughts in response to a sentence containing so many misconceptions on so many levels. Perhaps a no-particular-order list:
1) There is no objective, non-circular reason why we ought to follow God’s moral laws.
2) Atheism is just a disbelief in any gods. It has a problem grounding morality in the same sense that theism has a problem deciding how lay out a model railway.
3) Why would a godless universe be ‘irrational’? If Christianity is true, God works miracles and answers prayers, demons meddle, and free will works uncaused, all of which would make the universe less predictable and therefore less rational.
4) If ‘ground’ just means a reason or principle upon which to base morality then there’s no reason why atheists cannot come up with such reasons or principles. And they have. In fact, ALL moral systems are atheistic because Christian morality consists of lists of rules based on no reasons or principles, which isn’t a system by definition.
5) God is a conscious agent and therefore a subject. God’s morality is therefore just its subjective opinion.
6) There’s no way other than fallible, subjective human interpretation of the Bible to determine what God’s morality consists of. Example: the Bible doesn’t say that abortion is murder. Aquinas didn’t even think the soul entered the body until forty days after birth.
7) Where God’s moral standards are clear they are often repugnant: slavery is fine, rape is fine, murder of enemy non-combatants (and even their animals) is fine, etc. You can’t ground morality in a God that is immoral.
8) If God thinks murder (for example) is immoral he should prevent it, not just label it as immoral but let it happen anyway. Allowing evil to happen when one could prevent it at no cost or danger to oneself is immoral. (The usual Christian answer to this is to claim that intervention by God would violate free will, but so what? Placing a murderer’s freedom to kill as more important than his victim’s freedom to live is immoral and irrational.)
9) You can’t ground morality in a God which you can’t prove even exists. (I should have just made this the first item and stopped there.)
“They’re thinking entirely of “religion” as lists of rules like the ten commandments, rather than as as[sic] a description of the nature of the universe.”
Christianity isn’t “a description of the nature of the universe”. It’s a fairy story full of angels, demons, human-angel hybrids, the ‘immaterial’, souls, a three-in-one God, magic powers, magic words, magical realms (heaven) etc.
“This kind of atheist invariably tries to argue that if a person ever needs to exercise self-restraint, that means that they’re a bad person.”
This is a strawman. The point is not that ANY exercise of self-restraint makes someone a bad person, it’s that someone who only exercises self-restraint to avoid punishment by God is not as good a person as someone who doesn’t need to exercise self-restraint in the first place. Would you rather have a wife that loves you than a wife that wants to kill you but exercises self-restraint to avoid punishment by God?
“It is probably not entirely a coincidence that this kind of atheist is always a gentle autist who would have difficulty picking up a five pound bag of flour.”
There’s something very ‘manosphere’ about this non-argument. It shouldn’t even be necessary to point this out, but…
1) Physically weak people can use weapons, authority or psychological tactics to commit acts of immorality. Hitler was 5’8″ and weak. Trump is a frail old man, yet he’s destroying people’s lives with ICE, tariffs, and threats of invasions which could start WW3. Not to mention being a grossly immoral repugnant liar with no positive qualities at all. In general, your idea that only physically strong people can hurt others is childish in the extreme.
2) Morality has to do with a lot more than physical violence.
3) Most men (who commit the majority of crimes) are stronger than most women.
4) What’s wrong with being gentle? Jesus was obviously wasting his time with all that ‘turn the other cheek’ stuff.
“Even weirder to me is how grossly historically ignorant they are.”
What even is your point here? Societies used to be less moral?
“to use Critical Drinker’s phrase”
This makes sense. CD’s lazy, shallow and factually incorrect reviews appeal to the far right.
PS: Watched your YouTube debate with T Jump (I’m subscribed to him). You came across well, certainly better than you do in your own YouTube videos, and better than you do here. But you’re so easily sidetracked that you didn’t get anywhere even remotely near making an actual argument for God.
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