Dear Atheist,
Let’s start with the obvious suspicion.
If there is no God…
then who’s calling the shots?
If there’s no cosmic referee, no divine lawgiver, no ultimate authority handing down commandments from on high, then morality starts to look a little… made up. Negotiated. Optional. Suspiciously human.
And for many people, that’s terrifying.
Because for a long time, God has been the answer to the question, “Why is this right and that wrong?” Divine Command Theory wraps morality in certainty: things are good because God commands them, and wrong because God forbids them.
Clean.
Simple.
Authoritative.
Until you look a little closer.
If something is good because God commands it, then goodness is arbitrary. God could have commanded cruelty, dishonesty, or torture and they would suddenly become “good.” That doesn’t feel right.
But if God commands something because it is already good, then goodness exists independently of God. Which means God isn’t the source of morality after all – just a messenger.
Either way, the theory cracks.
And then there’s the more awkward issue.
What if God really DOESN’T exist?
Not “What if God exists but we disagree about interpretation?”
Not “What if God exists but people get it wrong?”
What if there simply is no one up there making the rules?
Then what?
At that point, ethics doesn’t disappear – it changes location.
Instead of descending from the heavens, morality emerges from us.
From communities.
From relationships.
From shared needs and shared vulnerabilities.
And yes – that means we’re involved in making it up.
Which sounds scandalous until you realize we already do this everywhere else.
We invent languages so we can communicate.
We invent laws so we can coexist.
We invent money so we can cooperate.
We invent games so we can play fairly.
None of those inventions are fake.
They’re functional.
Ethical rules work the same way.
They arise because humans are social, fragile, interdependent creatures who can hurt each other badly if we don’t agree on some limits. Morality becomes a tool for survival, cooperation, and meaning – not a list handed down, but a system hammered out over time.
This is where relativism enters the conversation.
Not as “anything goes.”
Not as moral laziness.
But as an honest recognition that ethical rules come from human contexts – histories, cultures, power structures, needs, and negotiations.
If no one is calling the shots, then we are.
Together.
Imperfectly.
Continuously.
And that realization makes some people nervous.
Because it means morality isn’t guaranteed.
It isn’t finished.
It isn’t immune to revision.
But it also means we’re responsible.
So, dear Atheist, we’re not accusing you of tearing morality down.
We’re noticing that morality may never have been propped up by divine authority in the first place.
It may have always been something humans do –
carefully,
conflictedly,
and with consequences.
Next, we’ll ask the question that always follows this one:
If we’re the ones making the rules…
how flexible are they, really?
Still negotiating,
~ The Radical Left