Atheism and morality

[Inigo]

Well you seem to be trading on a somewhat odd usage of 'exists'. Just because we view actions as, say, having the property of 'wrongness', it doesn't follow that therefore the action actually had it. Rather, it could just as easily be an illusion, or even a failure to realize that we tend to view things as (again) havimg the property of 'wrongness' when it conflicts with the goals and desires we have, not because there is some state of affairs 'X' (action) with the ontic property of 'Y' (wrongness).

Yes, morality could be a hallucination. I take it that for morality to 'exist' at least some statements of the form 'Xing is wrong' or 'Xing is right' would need to be true. And if we mean by 'wrong' something that is instructed 'not to be done' and that we thereby have inescapable reason not to do, then I think such statements will only be true if a god of a certain sort exists.

Note, my claim is not that the god does exist. It is rather that the god would need to if morality is to be a reality as opposed to a mere hallucination.