Moral Argument for God

Even if we assume objective standards--based on an "if" statement ("If it is murder, then it is wrong")--this does not prove the existence of God, any more than objective standards of mathematics prove the existence of God.

There seem to me to be some confusion here between 2 meanings of the word "law": A law of math or science is not a legislative law, and thus requires no lawmaker. The laws of math are definitional and the laws of science are descriptive. The "law" of gravity is just a description of what things always do. There need not be an "entity" to "impose" the law.

No animal can commit a crime.

You have exemplary moral character?

How could I disagree with you? I don't even know you.I only mentioned it because I have never known anyone with exemplary moral character before. Pretty good moral character, but not exemplary.So I found your comment surprising.

Altruism is exhibited by no one--not people, not animals.It is true we and animals do things that benefit others sometimes. But that is not altruism.We do it for ourselves.

Not at all. We do everything for ourselves. The firemen do it to prove they are good firemen.

Yes it does. All motives are selfish.

The point is the philosophical level, not the practical.

No morality has a ground, since we can always ask "Why should I care?" to any given moral principle. If one says, you should not do this or that because in the long run it is bad for you, I can say, why should I care about the long run? Perhaps I like chaos and killing and such. I find it romantic.It doesn't help to introduce a God, however, if we mean a super-human type of being, since in that case God's opinions would also be subjective; and it's not possible to imagine a being that is not just a greater version of a human.As regards the punishment-in-hell concept, that does not strike me as a moral reason for not doing something. A moral reason would to be to do something because we think such an action is right in and of itself, apart from any consequences to ourselves. So to do something out of fear of punishment says nothing about the moral status of what is done.

Calling the person that disagrees with you about moral principles a "psychopath" is an ad hominem attack. Why should principles a and b be absolutes?Suppose I define human behavior in aesthetic terms. I might say, what we should aim for is maximum excitement--that's my absolute. Now what produces the most excitement? Danger. Therefore, war is good.Any reason why your rules are better than mine? Not without begging the question.

Who cares about the majority? The majority of people in the US are religious. That doesn't mean I have to be. In point of fact, I think an argument can be made that the desire for excitement is a very common human trait, the desire of the "majority,"
if you want to argue in those terms. I can also present an argument from nature. Nature is amoral; therefore, we should act natural and be amoral ourselves. Be like the lions and the tigers and the bears--enemies of other species. We should adopt a tribal mentality and kill off all other tribes.

Yaro, you are begging the question all the way through with these principles you've set up about the beliefs of the majority and the survival of the species and people being happy and so forth. There's no reason why anyone should accept those principles other than personal taste. Why should I care if the species survives or not? But if I don't, you label me as immoral. That's what "sociopath" means in your scheme.Human morality has no ground. It is a hodgepodge of traditions. How it got started, nobody knows although there are all sorts of speculative ideas.

No, I don't have any better explanation. I supposed it evolved. As far as animals having morality, I'm not sure. I think one would have to be able to distinguish between what is just and what is in one's personal best interest in order to think morally. I'm not sure animals can do that. But then I don't know what goes in an animnal's mind.

The behavior you are describing in regard these animals might be all mindless instinct for all we know. Mindless instinct does not include the practice of choosing whether or not to do a good deed.