Morality without god

However, there is no reason that a deity must be involved in that logical proposition. Choosing which deity to obey, and even if we should obey a deity, are moral decisions made by our own species, assuming that deities exist in the first place.It gets even worse for religious texts which are man made texts. I beg to differ. I feel that one the most important things in life is to treat my fellow man with respect and to act morally. When the universe closes in on me I will care very much if I can look back at a life that fit the ideals I set out for myself. I will also be proud of myself if others are also able to look at my life and see a moral man who sought justice and respect where he could. What if the perspective is drawn from reality?

Baloney. If one person does not like chocolate and the other does, does this mean that people do not actually have a preference for chocolate since they contradict each other? It isn't contradictory. It is relative. That applies to people who believe in God as well. You have to show how God's commands are moral in addition to God existing. Otherwise, you are just talking about obedience, not morality.

Then your supposed absolute morality is actually relative to what a person believes. So much for absolutes.Also, an eternal God can still command people to do immoral things. Being eternal does not guarantee that the deity is good. It merely shows that they can exist forever. Even more so, there are apparently multiple eternal gods worshipped by several cultures, and they give different answers for what is and isn't moral. So which edicts do we follow, and which gods do we trust? Again, this is all relative to your beliefs, just as any atheistic or secular morality code would be.

Nowhere have you shown this. Sure he does. That platform is human morality where genocide is immoral. God ordered genocide, therefore God is immoral. It's not that hard to figure out. You tell me. If you can't determine if God's commandments are moral, then how can you claim that God is moral? It isn't arbitrary. Humans have the ability to empathize and understand the consequence of their actions. From those abilities we derive our morality. It is hardly arbitrary. It is your personal opinion that God is moral, and that the specific God you believe in is real. On the other had, we can use empathy along with reason to find moral rules without needing to reference a single deity.

Exteriminating a colony of ants is not genocide. Genocide is the act of trying to exterminate a group of humans, not ants. It is immoral for God to command or participate in the extermination of humans just as it is for humans.

There is no dilemma. Our morality is based on our ability to empathise with other sentient organisms. Ants are not sentient, therefore the rules for killing ants is entirely different than the rules for killing other sentient humans.This is also ties into bioethics. When designing animal protocols in biomedical research you have to justify why you need to use specific species. The rules for doing experiments on fish is different than the rules used for mice, which is again different than the rules used for primates. There is very little regulation on experiments that use zebrafish, a lot of regulations in experiments that use mice or dogs, and a massive shit ton of regulations for experiments in primates. Why is that? Because we consider primates to have feelings and emotions more like ours. Therefore, they are given more protection.There is no dilemma here, only one that you are trying to invent from nothing. Ants are not sentient. I think it would make you a small person to kill ants for no reason, but it is nowhere close to randomly killing humans for the fun of it. It is the standard that we are using now, the level of sentience. If God is as described, then God is sentient. Humans supposedly have a levle of sentience comparable to God's. Therefore, it is very immoral for God to command the extermination of a group of humans. The sad part is that you probably think it is moral for God to make such commands. Just goes to show why christian theology is not a candidate for an absolute moral code.

They don't. Genes govern the development of the brain, both as you grow and as you learn. The brain then makes the decisions, not genes.

Like the posts above discuss, it is a very complex interplay between nature and nurture. Our genes give us the ability to store and retrieve experiences. However, it doesn't control what those experiences are. At the same time, our genes can govern our basic emotions towards experiences, and those basic instincts (not the movie) can and do influence what we would call "free will".I really don't think there is a clear division between learned/cultural behavior and instinctual behavior. Rather, some behavior is influenced more by one than the other.

How is that any different than religiously based morality systems? Happiness should not come at the cost of taking away another person's happiness. We should be able to do what we want as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's freedoms. Therefore, who you marry does not affect anyone else (within age limits), so you should be free to marry whom you want. You can not define your happiness so that you are happy when you are taking away freedoms from other people.

That's a bit different than what God ordered in previous generations:

quote:

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"2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Sam. 15:2-3).

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So which is the moral action? Genocide or kindness?

That is immoral behavior. It is wrong to kill someone for these behaviors, especially children who have never done anything wrong. We happen to think that freedom of religion is the moral choice, not wiping out entire cultures because they do not worship your god.Time and again we see God commiting immoral acts, so why follow the dictates of an immoral God?

Human morality is for humans, not other species. This is the mistake that you consistently make. Humans are moral agents. Ants are not. Humans are sentient and have empathy. Ants do not. Of course the same rules do not apply to species that do not have empathy and are not sentient. Every "absolute morality" I have ever seen is as arbitrary as the relative moralities it is said to replace.

For me, it is really a simple concept. We judge for ourselves whether or not the actions or commands of a deity are moral. We are moral agents. It is obvious to me that morality exists independently of any deity or claim of divinity. Or as Euthyphro considered it, the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious.

I have a personal relationship with my parents, and my parents created me. Does this make everything my parents say and do absolutely moral and above reproach?