James Randi on The moral argument
Randi rejected the claim that morality requires God, pointing to his own life and the secular humanist tradition as evidence that goodness needs no divine grounding.
James Randi was a committed secular humanist who lived by a clear moral code without any reference to God or religion. He regarded the moral argument for God's existence as both logically flawed and personally offensive — the implication that morality is impossible without God struck him as a slander against the millions of nonbelievers who lead ethical lives.
Randi's response to the moral argument was characteristically empirical. He pointed to the observable fact that secular societies — particularly the Scandinavian countries he admired — consistently outperform highly religious societies on measures of social well-being, crime, education, and happiness. If morality requires God, he asked, why do the least religious societies tend to be the most moral by every measurable standard?
He was also quick to note that many of the most morally objectionable practices in history — slavery, inquisitions, witch-burnings — were carried out by people who were absolutely certain they were following divine commands. A morality grounded in divine authority, Randi argued, is not more reliable than one grounded in human reason and empathy — it is less reliable, because it cannot be corrected by evidence.
“I don't need God to tell me that cheating, lying, and hurting people are wrong. I figured that out on my own, and so did you.”