Morality without god

Of course that rabbit hole is simply irrelevant to this topic.

How can whether or not it is God's will that evil exist be irrelevant to the question of whether there can be morality without God?

Learn to read YOUR posts.

How about you learn to read my posts?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Which of course is NOT the post I was replying to. See Message 240.

Asserting that God is entirely a human construction borders on indifference, in my opinion. Jar too is guilty of indifference towards the Biblical God, going so far as to say that humans should correct said character whenever He(She(It) makes a mistake. Though Ringo brings up a good counter argument. Edited by Phat, : added link

That is not what jar says, it is what the Bible says.

No argument, there. When the Bible says anything that supports your own personal (and in my opinion warped) Theology of how man and God commune, you quote the sub book. When, on the other hand, a particular sub book within a popular version of compilation known as the Bible suggests that: You then cry foul, maintaining revisionist Theology. Facts show that the Jews back then hated the new religion, and people hate it today.(or laugh at it, which im sure you do.)You may well ask "what this spirit is?" Good question. Hint: Its not part of your human nature. Yes, Himself, Herself,Itself. Not Ourself. Note. Note. I do not judge the Lord. The only possible reason I would judge the Lord is if He Himself was challenging me to use logic, reason and reality in communion with His Spirit.Of course, the God as revealed in the Bible is at times an ever evolving human understanding. At other times, it(He) is the genuine article. So how do we tell the difference? You maintain that we were given the ability to know good and evil.As such, we are responsible to decide accordingly. I wont disagree, except to say that you as well as I have His Spirit within us, operating in communion with our own Spirit and need to recognize that we don't ultimately define God...we are defined by God through His Holy Spirit.(Of course, this is probably biased propaganda to one who believes themselves to be the ultimate judge and authority.) Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

How do you tell what is this so called spirit?What does "we are defined by God through His Holy Spirit" even mean?What does any of that have to do with morality?

Of course, that's an easy answer. How do we know which sheep are which? As you yourself have said, its not what we say but what we do. If you are doing the right thing, you have the Spirit. It is illogical to be able to exist and have no Spirit. (and yes, I believe that His Spirit communes with our spirit. We cannot be lone rangers, marching to the sound of our own drum. If we do whats right, we are His sheep.)

HUH?So an atheist that hears no voice but does what is right is ...?

Unfortunately Mr Harris is not the standard by which right and wrong are established. Nor does Mr harris understand how that is established. If indeed you have correctly represented him, he falls way short of understanding Good and BadIf bad is only that which causes suffering to his species, and he feels no compulsion for the suffering he inflicts on other species, then he cannot correctly state what bad or good actually areMr Harris does not qualify as reality in general. It does not benefit a cow to die at all, uchless for his consumption and pleasure. One can quickly see how his so-called morality quickly falls apart into nonsenseSuffering is only suffering when he is not the one served up on a plate. Relative morality is not only self-contradictory, it doesn’t actually have an existence because it is self-contradictory.Relative is just that relative. In a world where death and the taking of life is a daily process, murder can have no application where all those entities have equal properties and existenceYou are more than welcome to set up some sort of guidelines, for ones own self preservation, but that falls well short of actual right or wrong, good or bad, muchless moralityHence, there is simply no way to proceed except to understand it as simply matter doing thingsPerhaps this example will suffice to demonstrate the primacy of reality. Lets say there are 100 people on a ship moving quickly twords an Event Horizon, Quantum Singularity, otherwise known as Black Hole. Homer Simpson, said Can we call it thatOn our way different groups have different ideas about how to enter and proceed through the Ho. Some say this and some say that. There is however a large group of the 100, that agree in particular on a plan. Of course all 100 are wrong and their perceptions don’t conform to reality. They all die, or at bare minimum they are misinformed, wrong.Now, 1000 years from now, there are two very intelligent aliens in a small ship, that understand and apply their understanding of the actual physical properties of the QS, they adjust their instruments and the ship to conform to pre-existent conditions, that do not really care about their perceptions that do not conform to reality and they live.If there is an actual right or wrong, it must conform to what reality will allow, not what we perceive. If you choose to not believe in God and his infinite wisdom, then you are left to what reality allowsWhat reality allows in the form of moral right and wrong, is that there is no right or wrong and no way to come up with a standard, especially not a relative one.Here is another example of the subjective and actual non-existence of morality without God. Your walking along a beach and notice a flounder laying on the beach. You walk past it without any real care.Next you come across a beached whale. Im talking here about a large fish type animal, not a large women, land mammal or buffarillo. Once you see this large fish (whale), you immediately become concerned and call the press. Why? Because he larger, endangered or what?There is simply no logical way of making this distinction make any rational sense from a right or wrong point of view. We have simply been conditioned in this instance that larger is better or more important. Wait, what?At any rate the pack of dogs that come along or the vultures don’t share your concerns, either for the flounder or the whale. Without belief in God, you’ve only been conditioned. In another place or time, you feelings may differ greatly.If a person, group of people, or a certain society actually believe their morals or ethics are improving or better that some others, they only need to consult reality to know that is not actually the case.If they believe that their morals are actually, right or wrong, or that they have a way to establish that without a belief in an infinitely wise creator, they only need to consult reality to know that is not actually possibleDawn Bertot

I know that it is not kind to laugh at someone's disability but yours is self inflicted and that is comedy gold. That is the closest thing to right that you have written in this thread.

Being led by the Shepherd.You dont need to believe that the shepherd is leading you in order to be led by the shepherd. You simply have to do what you know internally is right. You may think its your conscience but it is His voice.

Everybody establishes it, through the very hard work of reflection, experience, and absorbing (but not being dictated to by) the community consensus view. What Harris is saying is that, via empiricism, we can in broad strokes arrive at many things that are "good" and "bad" with enough justification to enforce those views on the unwilling.That leaves many situations where people don't arrive at a consensus view, of course. But we have an abundance of mechanisms for dealing with that, too. Harris isn't saying that we should give over to empiricism, reflection, and consensus-making all of our moral reasoning, he's saying that we already have, and it's time to recognize it. Harris proposes a morality for humans, not for cattle.