Morality without God

There is rarely a simple yes or no answer to such complicated subjects.
Ok, can God change His moral code to humanity? Yes. However, He's already said that He will not until after the Second Coming. If He then comes down now and tells me to go against the code, He has lied and broken the infallibleness of God, making himself less than God. The entity, now no longer God, no longer has my belief in him, so I would not do the immoral deed, whatever it would be.
P.S., sorry about getting upset, I shouldn't have responded while having a bad day. Next time, I'll be sure to calm myself down first. Have a nice day, everyone.

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If He then comes down now and tells me to go against the code, He has lied and broken the infallibleness of God, making himself less than God. The entity, now no longer God, no longer has my belief in him, so I would not do the immoral deed, whatever it would be."

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So, God is not the source of morality, but is bound to a moral code outside himself, correct?

I don't think that this is a silly question at all but a very important one.We keep muddleing up the issue with "could God change his mind." Most christians would say he CAN but won't. But if it is POSSIBLE to imagine God asking you to do something immoral (whether he would or not) then that means that morality is something that is distinct from God (even if god never deveates from it).The point of this argument was to determine where morality comes from if not from God. Whether or not God will ever do anything wrong is irrelaevent because God's BEING good is not the same thing as God DEFININIG good.If God defines good then anything God does, says or commands is right by virtue of God saying it is right, and the rules of right and wrong can be arbitraraly detumined by God. However if God and good are in any way distinct, it is easy to see how an atheist can have morality because a belief in right and wrong has nothing to do with theisum.Where is the problem? You have already admitted that it is possible o imagine God doing something immoral (even if you also beleve that he would never do it) so you agree that there is somthing we can define as "morality" that is distinct from God.

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But now this brings up an intersting question. Though we seem to agree that their is no moral "force" that compels us to do the right thing, do we beleive that there is a universal moral code? Meaning, are some things right and wrong good and bad universaly? I think so, but I wonder what other interpretainons there are.

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I think the closest to "universal" it gets is there are certain things that are almost certain to be detrimental to a society if they are tolerated. Killing would be one of these, as if everyone considered killing ok in any situation then society would degrade into one big civil war.I don't think I agree with your later statement that killing is always wrong but justifiable in certain situations. I don't think it's wrong at all in those situations. I would go as far as to say that it is moral to protect someone from death by killing their attacker. I don't make a distinction between "good" and "moral", I think they're pretty much synonymous.So to sum it up I think there are certain situations that will never be beneficial in any society, but how to avoid those situations is not universal, and each situation needs to be taken in context...ie killing is not always wrong if the context means it is either the only, or the best option. By this I mean there may be a situation where I could possibly disarm a gunman, but by doing so I may inadvertently still get shot (or someone else would get shot). In that situation killing the gunman is preferable to risking the other lives.

Well remember, to use my (addmitedly arbitrary) terminology, killing is always "bad" but not always "wrong". Meaning whenever you have to kill, if there had been a way out of the situation that did not involve killing it would have been prefrerable.You are right to point out that we often act with "imperfect knowlege" nobody knows if they can succeed in nonleathaly disarming a gunman, but a child knows he has a bad chance, a swat team member knows he has a better chance and, say, Superman knows he has a great chance. In each of these cases it would still be "bad" for the individual to kill the gunman, but the "right" choice is different.I also think it is important to consider the concept of justice when discussing things like "the good of socioty". Let's say you could cure a fatal disease if you could capture 20 people and give them the disease. Would it be right to do so? It would certainly be "benificial to socitey" becase you would have cured the disease. but I think that such an act would be VERY wrong. If you are a utilitarian you might be reluctant to murder those people while still arguning that it was the right thing to do, and if you are a Kantian you probably agree with me that usinig people as an "means" rather than an end unto themselves is deplorable.

Ya know the number one reason stated by most people as they left the polls yesterday on why they voted for George Bush? Morals. Guess that pretty much says it all about morals in this country, doesn't it. Morals are what people see them as...period. Dr Jones has asked repeatedly for a repsonse to his hypothetical "God says for you to rape and murder" question. I would rather pose a real life example and ask people to repsond with their moral compass. Here is the question: Is our President indeed a moral person and please explain how/why you come to that conclusion?
Also, we (the good ole US of A) are rather quickly becoming a nation that is changing its motto from "Home of the free, land of the brave" to "Home of the free (if you're a christian), land of the homophobes". I, for one, am embarrassed to be from Michigan right now...Sorry Lam.

Do you agree that things can be right or wrong independant of God? If you do I think the argument is over. You have not replyed for quite some time.