I think most people that believe in a higher power look to them to provide answers for moral questions. Most people from other religion look to follow the rules their god or gods have laid out for them.
I like your answer. I like it a lot. Without "consequence" there is no need to be good. If people didn't have a "footprint" for the path to "goodness"; then wouldn't that be "Anarchy"?
no one is good except god, who killed hundreds of thousands because they didn't believe in him, and angered him some. And then killed his son to make up for it and whats to come. Yeah. I guess my definition of good is going to vary slightly from that, I dunno.
Okay now we are getting somewhere! So you think it's wrong to kill for the sake of good? Will that make you good?
The idea of good is a mind's projection based on feelings or emotions. Hitler was good at playing with these projections.
There's no denying that having someone else tell you what's right and wrong is easier than making decisions for yourself, and it's comforting to imagine that there is a universal score sheet marking everyone's points and demerits. Doesn't make it right, or beneficial.
ha, then you get into a chicken and egg sort of thing almost, I kill for good, defined by someone who killed for good, and who defined what was good, and what was ok to do in the name of it. It's ok to kill in the name of good defined by X, by killing for good in the name of y? not good. Defined and followed by someone who got extremely jealous and killed.
referring to a higher power for right or wrong doesn't make morality any more objective than deriving it from any other source. the only way specifics of morality would truly be objective in the sense you mean is if they were mind-independent - true independent of what god or any other mind thought. philosophers have been arguing over whether moral statements can be true independent of minds or not (as they have with math axioms) for thousands of years, so good luck with figuring that out. except as a sentient species we tend to value our own existence and well-being much more than worms tend to value theirs, so it's simple common sense that human lives have more value than the lives of worms. as far as we know worms don't really have much of a moral perspective : ) or we are born with evolved survival instincts and suppliment them with moral knowledge gained through experience as we grow, and empathetic behavior in a social context is part of this. everything sane humans would universally agree on as moral behavior (the golden rule etc) reduces to common sense for the well being or survival of the species, group, or invidivual in some way. in the context of evolution there's nothing mysterious about how we feel about moral behavior.
I disagree, God's laws have already been established for what can be deemed as right or wrong in this world. It may be a mystery for a godless society, sure. But not for people who know the Lord and the laws He's already given us. So let's say an atheist woman from PETA disagrees with you. Is she wrong? If so, how would you determine it? From a purely naturalist viewpoint I don't see how a human life can be objectively more valuable than a worms. We're all made of the same "stuff" which resulted from a random cosmic accident. So worms don't have the capacity for moral values, that makes them worth less than you? Based on what? I'm sure a worm would value it's fellow worms more than it would value you, same goes for any other animal. What gives your opinion more merit? Afterall, we are seen as animals by evolutionists. That's all good and well, but you must admit that it's based entirely on an assumption. People from different cultures may have different values than you, and may steal and lie or even kill in order to survive. Is that wrong? How so? Survival of the fittest right? Natural selection? Let's say you're a serial killer and your genetic makeup compels you and drives you to kill people. Can you fault him? After all he's simply acting on what his genes tell him to do. You may not like it, you may put him in jail for breaking your laws, but you can't call it "wrong" because there's really nothing "wrong" about it. Another extreme example, but I hope you see my point.
I can agree with this thinking. What if it is truly independent? You would think that civilization would just accept the outcome or laws presented before them; yet you see government take-overs, people like you that is against the existence of "God"; therefor you will not agree to follow his laws. I may have a reading comprehension issue here, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I think I'm going to have to agree with OdenRoyLMA2 on this point. If we are going to put the "Non-creationist view"; then the worm would have just as much merit for the worm. So your opinion is, our moral "footprint" is encoded in our DNA? That would be so crazy if it's true. Almost "supernatural".
There are university courses you can take on this if you REALLY want to know. They're called "Ethics". Although you might also be interested in Metaethics. One point to consider when you're evaluating the relationship between God and morality. There's something called the Euthyphro Dilemma, so called because it comes up in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro. To paraphrase to fit the god of the Pentateuch/Old Testament: "Are the 10 Commandments true because God decreed them, or did God decree them because they were true?" The first option is called Divine Command Theory and it has been rejected by great theologians and philosophers from Plato through St. Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz and onwards. It has several problems, the most serious being: (a) It makes God's commandments completely arbitrary. He could have said "Thou Shalt Rape and Pillage" (well, he pretty much does elsewhere in the OT, but that's besides the point) and then THAT would've been morally right. But we don't believe that. (If you say "But God wouldn't have commanded that" then explain why not. It can't be that rape and pillaging are antecedently wrong, because that's the SECOND option, not divine command theory.) (b) It makes God completely whimsical. If you ask "Why did God pick THOSE commandments" the answer has to be: for NO REASON AT ALL. Because if there was a reason, then it would imply that things are good or bad before God decrees them, which, again, is the other option. (c) It means the statement "God is good" is meaningless, because there is no standard of goodness outside of God by which we can assess him/her/it. It would be like saying "God is God" Well, duh. And so what? So, the generally accepted view is that if what God commands is good, it's because it already was. He's good at recognizing good from bad, but he doesn't MAKE it good or bad. So, how do we tell what's good and what's bad? Well, the three major theories (none of which suggest that what's good is subjective, by the way) are Utilitarianism, most famously laid out by Jeremy Bentham and then John Stuart Mill; Kantianism (the theory of Immanuel Kant), and Virtue Theory, which dates back to the Ancient Greeks, and the most sophisticated version of which is probably Aristotle's. Hope that helps.
Personally, I'd still go with what you've described, above. When the Scriptures say "all" things were made by/through Him, I believe that to be all commands and moral absolutes, as well:
