This months issue of Solid Ground investigates the implications of Exodus 21 and whether this Biblical passage suggests that the unborn have lesser value than other humans.

Douglas Wilson has written a guest article over at On Faith, discussing atheism, morality and whether we need God to be good.

A response to “the Dunedin School”, who recently described Thinking Matters as a group “of frustrated and atavistic reactionists who want to take away rights from women, homosexuals, and other minorities and restore power to the patriarchy.”

There is an objection to the moral argument for God’s existence, specifically the premise which states the best explanation for the foundation for objective moral values and duties is God. It is the idea that moral values and duties can be plausibly anchored in some transcendent, non-theistic ground. That moral values and duties exist objectively, but as brute facts, not needing an explanation for their existence. They are sort of eternal unchanging ideas that are necessary features of the universe. This position we shall call Atheistic Moral Platonism, and there are three ways we could respond.

“Good and bad are determined by what adds or subtracts to human flourishing.” This is a common retort for those who want to hold that moral values and duties are more that subjective and yet remain natural. If this was the case then morality would be objective as a standard that transcends personal feelings and opinion is provided. However, I submit this foundation is inadequate for four reasons.

Stuart sets out definitions for the terms ‘objective’ and ’subjective’, in the context of ethical theory.

A look at some of the commentary and discussion regarding the abortion debate, following the U.S. shooting of prominent abortion provider, Dr George Tiller.

Laws permitting abortion on demand are often deemed to be liberal. Political liberals are frequently ardent defenders of such laws. My contention is that support for abortion on the grounds of liberality is mistaken for the following reasons.
Most contemporary liberals advocate a form of the harm principle, famously articulated by Mill in On Liberty,

The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his …

Dinesh D’Souza has written an interesting article in Christianity Today about Peter Singer and his honest embrace of the ethical implications of atheism.

An argument undercutting non-theistic attempts to defend their value systems, by demonstrating that value itself is incoherent in a universe without God.