The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 17,
Number 3. Although Plato demonstrated the logical independence
of God and morality over 2,000 years ago in the Euthyphro, the
belief that morality requires God remains a widely held moral
maxim. In particular, it serves as the basic assumption of the
Christian fundamentalist's social theory. Fundamentalists claim
that all of society's ills - everything from AIDS to out-of-
wedlock pregnancies - are the result of a breakdown in morality
and that this breakdown is due to a decline in the belief of
God. Although many fundamentalists trace the beginning of this
decline to the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of
Species in 1859, others trace it to the Supreme Court's 1963
decision banning prayer in the classroom. In an attempt to
neutralize these purported sources of moral decay,
fundamentalists across America are seeking to restore belief in
God by promoting the teaching of creationism and school prayer.
The belief that morality requires God