Similarities in Criticisms Against Moral Objectivism and Religion

The last chapter we read from Shafer-Landau's The Fundamentals of Ethics was about the division of moral skepticism that completely denies the existence of any objective moral truths called nihilism. This week's chapter is centered on the criticisms moral skeptics such as nihilists and ethical relativists use to attack moral objectivism. One group of people that Shafer-Landau mentions in both chapters that I found to be a particularly interesting example is atheists. In the chapter on nihilism he relates them to nihilists by saying that "Atheists are, in fact, error theorists about religion" (Shafer-Landau 2013, 308). In the next chapter he looks into the criticism some atheists have against moral objectivism which can be summarized into: Morality cannot be objective because God does not exist (Shafer-Landau 2013, 329). This follows the reasoning that in order for a law to be objective it needs to be authored or created by something with greater capabilities than a human being. I'm not sure if I agree with the atheist argument against moral objectivism or their general belief that God does not exist. However, I think the atheist perspective and their stance on the existence of God is a very interesting one that could help us understand and make comparisons to the perspective of moral skepticism. This is why I decided to look into the level of present day atheism in different countries as well as examine some of the main arguments that atheists make to defend their view point.