Charlie Kirk Explains Why Atheism Cannot Support Objective Morality or Liberty in Conservative Movement

[00:00] Folks, we're in a spiritual battle right

[00:01] now. All across the globe, our Christian

[00:03] brothers and sisters are being targeted

[00:05] because they stand firm in their faith

[00:06] in Jesus Christ. God's word calls us to

[00:09] remember them. We've got to stand with

[00:10] those heroes of the faith. In the

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[00:14] Todd Nettleton and the Voice of the

[00:15] Martyrs bring you 40 gripping true

[00:17] stories of believers who said yes to

[00:19] Christ, even when it costs them

[00:21] everything, freedom, family, and even

[00:22] their lives. As a special gift to my

[00:24] listeners, you can get a free copy. Just

[00:26] head on over to vom.org/charlie

[00:27] org/charlie or click on the link below.

[00:31] >> So nervous.

[00:33] >> Sorry, it's first time. Little nervous.

[00:36] All right, so uh I have a friend named

[00:38] Thomas Shidy. He is the founder of a

[00:41] organization called Atheist for Liberty.

[00:43] He is openly conservative. Um but he's

[00:45] mostly interested in atheist activism

[00:47] and normalizing atheism in all sex

[00:50] including the conservative movement. He

[00:53] seems to be under the impression that a

[00:54] lot of conservatives um including you

[00:56] are more hesitant to work with atheist

[00:58] organizations. Is there any truth to

[01:00] that?

[01:01] >> Yes and no. I mean, if you're an atheist

[01:02] and you want to be part of the

[01:03] conservative movement, go ahead. But you

[01:06] must be an honest atheist and

[01:07] acknowledge that morality is

[01:09] definitionally subjective without a

[01:11] belief in God. That you cannot be an

[01:14] atheist and believe in objective

[01:15] morality. It is an impossibility. And

[01:17] true atheists will acknowledge this. At

[01:19] some point, you have an ought claim.

[01:21] Well, things ought to be a certain way.

[01:23] We as Christians or we that believe in

[01:25] the divine, we have is claims that there

[01:28] murder is wrong. Whereas an atheist will

[01:30] say, well, murder ought to be wrong

[01:32] because you can't have an objective

[01:34] definition if there is not a divine

[01:36] eternal power over you. So, look, if an

[01:38] atheist wants to fight alongside of us

[01:40] to end abortion or to try and end the

[01:43] massacring of our kids, that's called

[01:45] gender affirming care. and or if an

[01:47] atheist wants to march alongside of us

[01:48] to say no men and female sports, they're

[01:51] more than welcome to be able to do that.

[01:53] But atheist for liberty is an

[01:55] interesting phrase because I don't

[01:56] believe you can have liberty without God

[01:58] because liberty is not man's idea. It is

[02:00] God's idea. That's just my own personal

[02:02] belief and it's also the belief of

[02:04] everything that built this nation. But

[02:06] yes, I'm I'm I know a lot of good

[02:08] atheists. The question though is how do

[02:10] you know they're good? It's because

[02:11] you're appealing to a moral authority

[02:13] above just the secular material realm.

[02:15] one that is transcendent we would

[02:17] believe given by God.

[02:20] >> Um well I I I don't believe in objective

[02:23] morality. I do know there are plenty of

[02:24] atheists who are moral objectivists.

[02:26] >> Are you an atheist? Sorry to interrupt

[02:27] but

[02:28] >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. So let me

[02:29] just Can I ask you a question? And I

[02:31] don't mean I know this is your first

[02:32] time at the mic, so I'm just going to

[02:33] try to be tender in doing this.

[02:34] >> Okay. Appreciate that.

[02:35] >> So you don't believe in objective

[02:36] morality, right?

[02:37] >> I personally don't.

[02:38] >> Okay. Uh was the Holocaust objectively

[02:40] wrong?

[02:41] >> Objectively, no. would have been better

[02:43] if it didn't happen because most people

[02:45] wouldn't want that to happen.

[02:46] >> So that's that's where we that's where

[02:48] we are on different planets. Um and

[02:51] that's okay. I'm not trying to make fun

[02:52] of you. I'm trying to be graceful in the

[02:54] way that we're going about this.

[02:56] >> Do you think Hitler was objectively

[02:58] evil?

[02:59] >> No, because it's subjective.

[03:02] >> But I just hope all of you guys

[03:03] understand he's being an honest atheist

[03:05] to your credit because as an atheist,

[03:08] you're not allowed to say anything is

[03:09] objectively right or wrong. I come from

[03:11] a worldview that when you butcher six

[03:14] million people that is objectively wrong

[03:16] no matter what. And and it's very

[03:18] important truth claim because when you

[03:22] do not have objective truth anchoring

[03:24] your society then it becomes a power

[03:26] struggle. If you do not have truth then

[03:28] power will reign. Whoever can get the

[03:30] most amount of power then ends up having

[03:33] the most amount of say over society. We

[03:36] believe what is objectively right, true,

[03:38] good and beautiful should be

[03:39] transcendent over society. Your

[03:41] thoughts?

[03:42] >> So, do you believe objective morality

[03:43] specifically comes from the Bible?

[03:45] >> Yes and no. It's al it's in nature and

[03:47] the Bible explains nature. So, objective

[03:49] morality can be discovered in many

[03:51] different cultures and societies

[03:53] pointing towards what we believe is the

[03:55] ultimate objective truth, Jesus Christ.

[03:57] CS Lewis explained this the best in his

[03:58] book Abolition of Man, which is that

[04:00] almost every religion talks about a

[04:03] certain way to live, a a Dao or a path

[04:06] that we should be on. And so more more

[04:10] simply than just the Bible, we believe

[04:12] in what the founders believed, which is

[04:14] an ethical monotheism that there is one

[04:17] God. He has a general way that he wants

[04:19] you to live. for example, murdering is

[04:21] bad, kidnapping is wrong, defense of the

[04:24] innocent, and we should do our best to

[04:26] try to live alongside of that path.

[04:28] >> Okay. Well, I think those are very

[04:30] interesting examples. Uh, you bring up

[04:31] the founders, you bring up Hitler, but

[04:33] Hitler was a self-proclaimed Catholic,

[04:35] and he called Nazism a Christian

[04:37] movement.

[04:38] >> Yeah, I would be careful saying that. He

[04:39] was he was not. That's okay. I mean,

[04:41] >> he called himself a Catholic. He said he

[04:43] specifically said in 1927, "Our movement

[04:45] is Christian." They had on the belt

[04:46] buckles God on our side. Yet

[04:48] >> they they swear to the almighty God. Uh

[04:51] atheists were not trusted to be in the

[04:52] SSH.

[04:54] >> Even if I grant you that despite the

[04:55] fact that he killed a lot of pastors and

[04:57] priests and

[04:58] >> there of course you can pervert things

[05:00] in the name of God. No one denounces

[05:03] that. Just as a side note though far

[05:05] more people died under the banner of

[05:06] atheism than Christianity in the 20th

[05:08] century.

[05:09] >> Mao was an atheist. Stalin was an

[05:11] atheist. Pulpot was an atheist.

[05:13] believing in no god actually led to the

[05:15] destruction and the murder of well over

[05:17] a hundred million people. And that's

[05:19] fine. So again, if atheists want to come

[05:21] alongside us as conservatives and fight

[05:24] for what is good, that is great. But I

[05:26] will never acknowledge that atheists can

[05:28] tell me what is objectively good. They

[05:30] can only give me a preference. They

[05:31] cannot tell me what is right. And

[05:33] preferences eventually will lead you

[05:36] towards moral and societal decline.

[05:39] >> Okay. So I think you just listed a bunch

[05:41] of communists and it's worth

[05:42] acknowledging the vast majority of

[05:43] atheists are not communists just like

[05:45] the vast majority of Christians are not

[05:46] theocrats who don't support the divine

[05:48] right. It's also worth acknowledging

[05:49] that the uh founders were actually

[05:52] inspired by enlightenment values not by

[05:54] the Bible. America was founded as a

[05:56] secular nation. We were the first uh

[05:57] quote unquote goalless constitution.

[06:01] >> Yeah. Again, I've done this so many

[06:02] times, so I don't know if we want to

[06:03] waste our time doing this, but 55 out of

[06:05] 56 of the signers of the declaration

[06:07] were Bible believing church attending

[06:08] Christians. Nine out of 13 of the states

[06:10] of the title of ratification, required a

[06:12] declaration of faith in order for you to

[06:14] serve in the states. We were our birth

[06:16] certificate, which is the Mayflower

[06:17] Compact said explicitly, we are here to

[06:19] spread Christianity throughout the land.

[06:20] It was the first great revival that led

[06:22] to the American Revolution of Jonathan

[06:24] Edwards and Jonathan Mayhew and George

[06:26] Whitfield that preached all across the

[06:27] eastern seabboard. John John Adams

[06:29] famously said, "The Constitution is

[06:30] written solely for a moral and religious

[06:32] people. It's wholly inadequate for the

[06:34] people of any other. We were a Christian

[06:35] nation that was able to embrace the idea

[06:37] of a free society." God is mentioned

[06:39] four times in the Declaration of

[06:40] Independence. Not only that, Jesus

[06:42] Christ is mentioned in the Declaration

[06:43] of Independence where it says we appeal

[06:44] to the divine judge of the universe,

[06:46] which of course is a direct appeal to

[06:48] Jesus in the book of Revelation. Yes,

[06:50] there were rationalist Enlightenment

[06:51] values that informed some of the

[06:53] founders, but it irrefutably was a

[06:55] Christian nation. Maryland was Catholic.

[06:57] Pennsylvania was Quaker. Almost every

[06:59] state had their own like specific type

[07:02] of Christian preference. The idea of an

[07:04] atheist or not believing in any god was

[07:06] an idea that was so foreign to the

[07:08] founders. Even Thomas Jefferson, the

[07:10] great deist, he revered the Bible,

[07:12] albeit with, you know, some significant

[07:13] edits. However, the idea of believing in

[07:16] no cosmological or no axiological or no

[07:19] teological or no ontological being would

[07:23] be a concept that our founding fathers

[07:24] and not just find foreign they would

[07:25] find it extraordinarily dangerous. Why?

[07:28] Because the French Revolution was

[07:29] happening simultaneously as the American

[07:30] revolution which was explicitly atheist.

[07:33] They they actually recreated their own

[07:36] gods and had they said we are going to

[07:38] appeal to what the god of reason. And

[07:40] this is my final contention is that when

[07:41] I talk to atheists, the French

[07:43] Revolution is a great example. They

[07:44] literally tried to change the Gregorian

[07:46] calendar to a 10-day week. They went and

[07:48] imprisoned people of faith. They put

[07:49] priests in jail. All these different

[07:51] sorts of things. And they said, "We are

[07:52] going to appeal to the God of reason."

[07:54] Well, how did that work out? It worked

[07:55] out with the guillotine and the

[07:57] slaughter of tens of thousands of

[07:58] people. The French Revolution was one of

[08:00] the greatest disasters in human recorded

[08:02] history. Contrast that with the American

[08:04] Revolution. Why did the American

[08:06] Revolution create the greatest nation

[08:07] ever to exist in the history of the

[08:08] world? And the French Revolution

[08:10] resulted in a lot of blood and even the

[08:11] killing of their own once leader

[08:13] Maxmillian Rubs Beier. It's because we

[08:14] were anchored on Christian ideas. If you

[08:16] do if you are not anchored on Christian

[08:18] ideas, then don't be surprised and all

[08:20] of a sudden there is no fruit to the

[08:22] harvest that you're trying to create.

[08:23] Thank you for your time. I want to try

[08:24] to get to the next question. Thank you.

[08:27] [Applause]