quote:
I'm just pointing out that the religious part of it goes out the window once the government wants to start killing any group of people. Or do you need faith in a higher power to know that is way beyond wrong?

I have to say that belief in the biblical God is required to truly know that such a thing is "way beyond wrong".

What I am trying to point out is not that those who reject God can't have some sort of personal understanding of right and wrong, but that without an objective source of moral reasoning (God), their views of morality are logically reduced to nothing more than opinions and preferences with no real meaning to them. Without an objective moral standard, one cannot actually "know" something is immoral/wrong, but can only dislike a particular action as displeasing to their own personal preferences.

Objectively, in an atheistic worldview, there is no rational basis for condemning anyone for acting consistently with their own arbitrary moral framework, and since atheism precludes the existence of objective morality, the atheist has no ground to stand upon to make a meaningful statement of praise or condemnation for any action at all.

So for the atheist to say that the government killing any group of people is "way beyond wrong", he is actually just expressing his own personal opinion rather than holding to an objectively true statement. No, it's not objectively wrong for the government to kill any group of people--Christian or otherwise--according to atheistic presuppositions, because there is no objective standard of morality in their worldview to compare such actions to in order to make a clear judgement.

In conclusion, yes, one does have to acknowledge a higher power (the Biblical God, specifically) in order to know that the government killing any groups of people is way beyond wrong.