OK, what IS the right classification...

[DeistPaladin]

Well I don't take the quoted example as anything more than a dumbed down caricature.

I'll grant that Ryft and Lucent never said the part about "must be Yahweh, who else". This part of the TAG argument is typically just an unspoken assumption.

That said, the rest of my hypothetical quote does sum up the problem with the TAG argument as quoted by William Lane Craig.

1. Without God, there can be no standard for absolute morality
2. Absolute moral standards exist.
3. Therefore God exists.

I've mistakenly called the first two steps "begging the question" since they are asserted without any kind of evidence offered. My mistake wasn't in asserting that the arguments were fallacious or why they were fallacious but in using the wrong identification for the fallacy. The fallacy used here, twice, is the bare assertion fallacy.

The assumption "God = Yahweh" is left unspoken.

The other argument, that "moral goodness is grounded in the very nature of Yahweh", used by apologists as an escape to Euthepro's dilemma, is fractal in its fallacious nature. In the first place, WTF does this even mean? In the second place, the argument smacks of circular thinking ("everything Yahweh wills is good, so we know that goodness is grounded in Yahweh's nature, and since goodness is grounded in Yahweh's nature, we know that everything Yahweh wills is good"). Third, and perhaps most significantly, this definition of goodness and Yahweh's nature is simply asserted without proof (bare assertion fallacy).

The assertion, without God there can be no basis for absolute morals, is also a false dilemma. Namely:

1. God exists and absolute morals exist or
2. God doesn't exist and absolute morals don't exist.

This is a false dilemma because there are two other possibilities:

3. God exists and absolute standards of morality do not.
4. God does not exist and absolute standards of morality do.

With #3, there might be an evil god. Or perhaps simply a flawed god. With #4, it might be that an absolute or objective standard can be found in nature, to be discovered. Any of these scenarios seem possible to me, glossing over just what objective morality is supposed to be (I'm still not clear on that).

Hope this clears everything up.