Anything Divine in the Bible?

I find no big difficulty in making moral judgments. And I don't have to give the answer: "because He told me to...".There are two rather different sources:1) I live in a society of social animals. It is very obvious to me that his confers innumerable benefits to me. For this society to work I have to do my part. Basically this comes down to; do unto others as you would have then do unto you. It is interesting that this suggestion is present in one form or another in dozens of distinct societies. It seems I'm not the only one who understands this is a good basis upon which to build a mutually beneficial society.In addition, I understand that our society can not stand totally unrestricted behavior of those who might not be so cooperative.2) The other reason I make moral judgments and behave as I do is that it just plain feels good when I do. I don't know how much of this is nature and how much is nurture. I am only intellectually curious about why I feel like this. But I do get a deep, good feeling out of what I consider "right" behavior which is, sometimes, totally altruistic.This is the basis upon which I build my moral code, part rational and part not so rational.From this basis I am prepared to judge other behaviors. And I judge the behavior of you God-thingy to be abhorrent because I would judge such behavior in a human as being so.

As noted Buz. You've got your history wrong again. Various formulations of this idea appeared in many cultures before Jesus had a chance to articulate it.You'be also managed to miss where it fits in the discussion here.
I used it because it is a good way to summarize a rational approach to arriving at a basis for morality that is based on our status as social animals. No one has made it clear to me how my post doesn't answer that question.The question put was how could we have morality without a law giver. Some people don't need to be terrorized into being moral. That seems to be one big difference between us.

I disagree. The GR is a simple statement of a rationally thought out approach to protecting the society that I depend on. The reasons for wanting to follow it are not altruistic. That it seems to appear in all societies is, IMO, a symptom of our being social animals.

Well, we are not all too perfect. However, on this front too, many humans seem to be a whole big lot better than your OT god.The argument was about the morality of this god that you conjecture. So far it doesn't stack up very well in comparison to the average human. In fact, even compared to the worst humans of history your OT god seems to come out looking pretty shabby.

Of course he is! That is exactly what you do too. It is relative morality rather than absolute.You say that "thou shalt not kill" is a part of your absolute morality. But you don't mean it. You mean "Thou shalt not kill unless it is justified". Then you have a ton of reasons that justify it(sometimes).So is killing wrong or not? It is both right and wrong at the same time. It is relative to context.

I gave you the answer to this question already. Both the reasoned answer as a basis for a working society and my own personal reasons.
Message 95I do not need to have my Mummy (or sky daddy) tell me what is right and wrong any longer. I grew up (well, a bit).I am willing and able to take responsibility for my own actions (both good and bad). I make judgments on what is a moral action based on the facts in the context at hand. I judge other individuals and myself on that basis. It is an absolute basis for judgment but it isn't a morality based on absolute rules. There isn't one.There are a very few people who accept that killing a human is absolutely wrong (and a even fewer who think that any killing is wrong). I'd guess over 99.8 % of people will find a context (that is a recognition that the rule isn't absolute) for which killing is ok. And of the remaining 0.2% a majority would, themselves, kill when faced with a specific choice. I highly doubt that you are in that group.I say God's actions are evil as described in the Bible because if someone else or I did that under the circumstances described I would call it evil. Morality is relative to the circumstances and in those circumstances my judgment is evil is shown. It is, in those circumstance, absolutely evil.In fact, for an omnipotent, omniscient being it is Evil capitalized as He has many more choices than lesser beings do. (E.g., he is never threatened with death by anyone.)It is the only basis that we have to judge if we aren't going to just shrug and say "it is for God to judge, not me". Which, of course, no one does most of the time. I see devote Christians judging all the time. They claim to base this on what God as told themIf you haven't understood all this by now I am forced to conclude that you may belong in that group described by some fundamentalists that they claim will do whatever awful things if their sky daddy isn't watching them to threaten them. I don't have that threat and still manage moral actions a lot of the time.In fact, with an omniscient, omnipotent watcher you are incapable of an actual altruistic act. You can do nothing without oversight and the possibility of huge reward or punishment (in fact, pretty well infinite reward or punishment).There are many Christians who actually follow what is written in the Bible (nothing near a majority of course but some percent). They devote time and personal resources and wealth to helping others. However, they can never be considered to be altruistic.

And in fact, there is recent information that much or all of the labor was not slavery. The farmers were hired when the nile flooded the fields. Recent discoveries of the actual settlements of the workers including writings shows that they were not slaves. This is no longer understood to be the case.(I suppose it is possible that foreign captives were used as slaves but I don't know if this is documented at all.)