Atheism and Morality, First Debate

This debate is reproduced from the CARM discussion boards in March of 2003. The topic is as follows:

"The atheistic worldview (there is no God) cannot defend moral absolutes, and thus it's moral system is inconsistent and self-contradictory. The Christian theist worldview can defend moral absolutes, and thus it's moral system is consistent and non-self-contradictory."

The debate was between myself (Matt Slick) and an atheist whose nickname on the discussion boards was gcomeau.

The original post by the atheist was in standard paragraph form. I have numbered the atheist's paragraphs and adopted an outline format to allow ease of response. The atheist's posts appear in black text. My responses follow each paragraph and are in green.

Below is my initial post laying out the topic. gcomeau then responded.

[sic] is a designation used when quoting another person by using hisiginal quote, which has a grammatical error and is not a typo.

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"This is the initial post of a debate between myself (Matt Slick), a Christian, and gcomeau, an atheist.

The debate topic is as follows: "The atheistic worldview (there is no God) cannot defend moral absolutes, and thus it's moral system is inconsistent and self-contradictory. The Christian theist worldview can defend moral absolutes, and thus it's moral system is consistent and non-self-contradictory."

gcomeau will produce the first post and then I will respond. There is no time limit on this debate, and we are each able to respond at our leisure to the other.

I still suggest that posts be brief, as long posts will require large amounts of time in which to respond.

Also, let's keep all responses under this thread so that it can be easily archived."