quote:
As mentioned, the point was that your being appalled can be considered to derive from a God-given conscience - in which case you'd be believing God on the matter about which you are appalled - if not believing IN God.
Telling someone who does not believe in God that they are implicitly believing in God by having morals is just plain silly. You're just going to annoy them.
I think it's very likely that morals originate with us, not with God. We ascribe morals to God that we ourselves see as ideal (or useful).
Evidence :-
- Different people have very different morals. Honour killings are acceptable in some cultures but not others. Sex with young teenage boys is acceptable in a few cultures. Slavery used to be acceptable in the West but is not now. Cannibalism, attitudes to violence, the moral status of women - etc etc. This shows for certain that morals are not entirely derived from God.
- God's behaviour in the Old Testament is by modern standards sometimes deeply immoral. He condones rape. He kills his enemies. He punishes until the third or fourth generation. He is vilely cruel to lepers. He ordains capital punishment for relatively minor crimes or non-crimes. This set of morals does not drive our behaviour today - thank God. Irony intended.
- Views of what God's morals are vary from person to person. Some evangelicals believe that non-believers are all condemned by God to eternal punishment - personally I find this to be one of God's most shocking examples of cruelty. Liberal Christians do not believe that God is like this. So even among those who believe in him, there is no consistency.
- We know from research that when people change their own views of what is right and wrong based on exposure to different views or circumstances, then their belief in what God thinks is right and wrong changes accordingly to match their own views.
- As many others have already posted, animals have morals in various degrees, and primates have something quite similar to our own morality. Unless you're prepared to concede that God has given animals a sense of morality too, then this is an argument against God- given morals for human beings.
We are creating God in our own image and not vice versa.
™ Version 4.2
