Morals without God or Darwin, just Empathy

I do not agree. I would admire someone who does good from their own kindliness much more than someone who does so from fear of a (perhaps only imaginary) god. If our sacrifice etc is our own, we have a valid claim to our own nobility; otherwise we do not.To me, it is the servile, god-fearing type of morality that is empty.

I think you may have misunderstood me. What I am getting at is an idea that the heroic sacrificer displays nobility if the sacrifice is from his own good will, but not if it is merely from fear of a god or anything else.I any case, why should heroism be forgotten, no matter what its motivation?I'd like to offer another similar example, if you will indulge me. On a camping trip, someone commented to the effect that a tree we were enjoying looking at displayed God's glory. I found that I preferred to allow the tree the diginity of its and its ancestors' own histories and successful struggles for survival.