Richard Dawkins on The moral argument
Dawkins argues that morality is a product of evolution and cultural development, not divine command.
In The God Delusion, Dawkins devotes a full chapter to morality, arguing that our moral sense is a Darwinian byproduct of living in social groups. Altruism, reciprocity, empathy, and fairness all have evolutionary explanations — they promoted survival and reproduction in ancestral environments. No divine lawgiver is required.
Dawkins also documents the 'moral Zeitgeist' — the observable fact that moral standards change over time in ways that have nothing to do with religion. Slavery was once universally accepted; now it is universally condemned. This moral progress is driven by secular forces — reason, empathy, expanding circles of concern — not by scriptural revelation, which has consistently lagged behind.
Against Craig's claim that without God there is no objective morality, Dawkins responds that even believers do not actually derive their morals from scripture. They cherry-pick the parts they find acceptable — which means they are using an independent moral standard to judge the Bible, not deriving their standard from it.
“We do not need God in order to be good — or evil.”
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak.”